Bearing One Another's Burdens

Abstract

In the contemporary United States, trauma is a significant disruptive force in the lives of families. By its nature, however, traumatic suffering isolates and marginalizes its victims, with the result that the pastoral caregiving needs of suffering people can go unrecognized and unmet. This dissertation proposes that caring for families who struggle to cope in contexts of traumatic suffering and chronic distress is a vital work of mission for the Catholic church in the twenty-first century. It further proposes that this work can best be enacted in the local church setting when configured as a synodal, trauma-aware, relational, caregiving community of practice (a STAR caregiving CoP) ministry. The ministerial model offered here is designed to enable parishes and dioceses to develop compassionate, competent ministerial initiatives that can meet the particular needs of families in their communities. Grounded in the theoretical discourses of theological anthropology, ecclesiology, situated learning theory, the ethic of care, and traumatology, the model also reflects insights drawn from the author’s qualitative doctoral research study of two pastoral caregiving ministries that serve men and women struggling with the personal traumas that erupt in family life. The STAR caregiving CoP model offers the local church a flexible, robust framework to employ in the construction and evaluation of familial pastoral caregiving ministries.