Sponsored by Innovations in Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care, this session brings together three presenters exploring how chaplains are reimagining spiritual care to meet emerging forms of collective suffering and transformation. One paper examines transdisciplinary approaches to chaplaincy that foster resilience amid ecological and social crises, expanding spiritual care into community and organizational settings. A second presentation investigates the expanding field of animal and interspecies chaplaincy, highlighting how practitioners sustain ethical presence in contexts of human–animal grief and transition. The third paper offers a compelling vision of labor solidarity as a spiritual and vocational commitment for healthcare chaplains, grounded in feminist and Catholic social ethics. Together, these papers illuminate new frontiers of chaplaincy practice—shaping compassionate responses to ecological, interspecies, and labor realities of our time.
We are living in a time of global meta-crisis marked by ecological disruption, social instability, and widespread emotional, physiological, and spiritual distress. As uncertainty deepens, the role of chaplains becomes increasingly vital. This paper explores how chaplains can expand traditional forms of spiritual accompaniment by integrating resilience, innovation, and relational skills to support organizations addressing social suffering. Drawing on my lived experience as a case study, I examine how chaplaincy skills—such as group facilitation, reflective practices, grief work, and meaning-making—can support communities beyond religious institutions. Examples of collaborations with climate nonprofits, public health departments, schools, libraries, and community initiatives demonstrate how spiritual care can address burnout, anxiety, ecological grief, and loss of meaning. I argue and present transdisciplinary thinking and creative approaches to chaplaincy are essential for meeting emerging spiritual needs and fostering collective resilience to prepare for our future(s). (AI was used to support summarizing the abstract in a concise manner)
How is spiritual care evolving in response to human–animal relationships? This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study that maps the emerging multifaceted field of veterinary chaplaincy, animal chaplaincy, and interspecies spiritual care. Drawing on survey and interview data from 43 chaplains and chaplaincy educators in the United States and Canada, this research foregrounds the voices of chaplains working in a wide range of human-animal contexts, including homes, veterinary practices, animal shelters, wildlife sanctuaries, ecological habitats, and religious institutions. These chaplains provide a range of spiritual care interventions, creating rituals for transitioning animals, offering grief support for caregivers, and companioning animal-care professionals experiencing occupational and moral distress. This dialogical session will focus on key insights from the findings: how practitioners prepare for the work and how they sustain their practice.
This paper agues that healthcare chaplains should become more actively involved in organized labor as part of their vocation and as a strategy for sustaining the future of chaplaincy. Drawing on Catholic social thought, feminist ethics, labor history, and ethnographic interviews with chaplains in healthcare contexts and nurses involved in the 2026 New York City nurses' strike, I develop a pragmatic account of solidarity as both moral virtue, social practice, and professional call.