2020: Chaplaincy Year in Review
Spiritual care providers were in the news in 2020 more than ever before. Search engines report more than 400,000 articles in print, audio and video. The work chaplains are doing in healthcare was central and their – your – work in social movements, municipal contexts, ports, universities and many more places was also covered. We pause and offer gratitude for you as we turn the calendar page. And we gather strength and commit to staying beside you in the months to come. The media doesn’t cover all chaplains – add your own profile to our This is What a Chaplain Looks Like campaign.
Among those many articles on chaplains this year, here are a few we think call attention to the importance of this work:
April 3: “The Men and Women Who Run Toward the Dying”
Doctors and nurses focus on healing the physical; chaplains are there for everything else. They are men and women from every religious background and none. Their job is not to convert, or to convince people to believe in God. Some don’t believe in God themselves. Their job, in the words of the Rev. Kaylin Milazzo, a palliative care chaplain at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, is “to be present with people in their suffering.” Theirs is a ministry of presence.
April 15: “He’s Been A Hospital Chaplain For Years. He’s Not Shocked That So Many COVID-19 Victims Are Black.”
As a black chaplain in a city that has long had health inequalities that break down along racial lines, Cobb was not surprised that COVID-19 hit the city’s black population hard. But even he was shocked to see how many black people were filling the ICU beds and requiring ventilators in the two hospitals where he works. The citywide data is similarly stark — black people account for about 70% of the coronavirus deaths in Chicago but make up only 30% of the population.
May 17: “The Rise of the Chaplains”
At the doors of ICUs, in hospitals, and at nursing homes; with police, firefighters, and other first responders; and caring for the crews of the container ships that are keeping the global economy crawling along, you’ll find chaplains, often working collaboratively with other staff.
June 23: “Hospital Chaplains Grapple With COVID-19’s ‘Tsunami’ Of Grief”
Hospital chaplains are specialists in grief, trained to provide comfort to dying patients and families experiencing the deepest pain and loss. But the scenes inside hospitals hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic have tested their calling like perhaps no other event in our lifetimes.
July 17, 2020: “Coronavirus Victims: 1st Muslim Prison Chaplain In Texas, Akbar Nurid-Din Shabazz”
Even before a recent surge of new cases of the coronavirus in Texas, community leaders were dying from the disease – leaders like Akbar Nurid-Din Shabazz, whose community was locked behind bars. In 1977, Shabazz became the first Muslim chaplain in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was a confidant and mentor to many, and he died of COVID-19 on April 23.
August 10: “M Health Fairview’s lead Muslim chaplain on navigating spiritual care in the pandemic”
Much of his work is done virtually via phone or iPad, he explained, though he does meet with some patients in person, as well.
He recalled one man he recently visited who was nearing the end of his life.
“To have that honor is something so meaningful to me,” Abdelaziz said, “to be one of the only people that this patient is having some kind of contact with in their last moments.”
September 3: “Army makes history promoting Black woman chaplain to colonel”
“As an African American woman who has always been proud of the skin that I’m in, in this time this is a bright spot in a sea of what seems to be darkness never-ending,” Lawson said during the ceremony in the auditorium of the school at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
“In a time when we are faced with political polarization, racial unrest, a pandemic and economic uncertainty, it’s good to have something to celebrate and to take our minds off of what is going on, if for only for a moment.”
October 3: “Survivors of COVID-19 wrestle with questions about God and purpose; one man shares his story.”
“They’d be having these really mixed experiences or emotions — a lot of gratitude for having survived, and at the same time, being really thrown for a loop,” she said. “We have these times in our lives that are those big moments, those scary moments. That’s a time when we turn toward those big questions, those existential questions.”
November 6: “Marquette University Muslim chaplain Sameer Ali discusses COVID’s impact on Milwaukee’s Muslim community”
He spoke Oct. 21 at Soup with Substance, a weekly program for the Marquette community that focuses on social justice and peacemaking topics over a simple lunch of soup and bread provided by MU Campus Ministry. During the pandemic, the talk is virtual and a soup recipe is shared.
Chaplain Sameer Ali has been serving as the Muslim Chaplain on campus since the Fall of 2019. He also serves as a chaplain in the medical field and holds a graduate degree in religious studies from Stanford University. Chaplain Ali is interested in interfaith bridge-building, social justice, and serving the student population at Marquette through spiritual support and pastoral guidance.
December 1: “Guard chaplains reflect on Floyd protests, lessons learned”
Sam Houston, a Baptist pastor and the Minnesota National Guard’s only Black chaplain, said he saw protesters taunting some African American guard members — and heard soldiers agonize about wishing they could stand with demonstrators.
“You’re providing the opportunity for people to protest peacefully for you,” Houston advised them, adding that their role in serving was to ensure a safe environment.