Only if you can prove you are a Catholic. Going by this story.
I posted earlier this year about a woman who continued to blog after her husband attempted to kill himself in front of her. Now around 9 months later she is writing about what happened when she needed spiritual help at the hospital in the leadup to his death.
In the immediate After… I was willing to believe in anything. one of the first things I did, the morning After, while Tony was unconscious in the ICU, was to visit our local catholic church, to arrange for a priest to come and perform Last Rites. Why…? Well, Tony was Catholic. Not practicing Catholic, but Catholic enough that our son was baptised. And I remembered, when Tony’s nan was in her last hours, he held her hand and recited the Lord’s Prayer, over and over, to bring her comfort. I think I wanted to bring the same comfort to him. The priest attended the hospital, only after checking that it was ‘OK’- I was not Catholic, and while our son was baptised at this church, we weren’t technically part of the parish. That stung, and still does.. that we had to meet some official requirement,s for prayer to be given. Despite me asking him to, the priest didn’t wait for me to perform Last Rites. Tony’s mum, and a friend of ours, where there, both baptised Catholics…. I guess that was enough. That stings too.
She goes on to say that the local pastor was there for them, did pray for them both without her having to prove anything.
Reading some of her posts is heartbreaking.
This excerpt makes me wonder what Jesus would do if He was the Catholic priest. Jesus wouldn’t ask her to prove anything except her grasping for Him, I believe.
http://rrsahm.com/2011/08/view-on-religion-from-after-part-one.html?m=1
[...] an Emergency Services Chaplain (one of the many hats I wear) I’ve seen this sort of thing play itself out far too often: Only if you can prove you are a Catholic. Going by this [...]
Having a back ground in Chaplaincy – I know various hospitals have differing rules on religious people coming and ministering in the hospital. Some hospitals won’t allow ministers to come unless the person is known to the minister / priest as being a parishioner. When my father in law was in hospital, the wouldn’t allow us to ask a priest to come and visit him – because he had to ask himself and had no religious affiliation on his paper work.
Its rather cruddy and I am glad to say that type of thing is becoming less common… Off course there are times when a minister can go nudge nudge wink wink. I found when I was hospitalised for 2 months a number of years ago…I had more freedom to initiate talk to patients and staff about matters of faith, then the chaplains did.