WEEK IX

Week IX

Pastoral care tends to be different in different cultural settings or communities. Different cultures have unique and diverse perspectives about life. Thus, pastoral care includes a multicultural approach when engaging or counselling the said communities. This ensures that undertakings on this front respect unique aspects of all people as well as their culture. Therefore, it is important to note that pastoral care in one community could differ from that undertaken in another community. For instance, in pastoral care with African-American women, womanist strategies and perspectives could be more effective. Most African-American women are discriminated against on the basis of their religion and spirituality. For this reason, pastoral care with the said community would ideally incorporate certain aspects on religion and spirituality. This could come in handy in efforts to ensure that the psychological wellness of African-American women is secured.

With regard to pastoral care in Latino community, marginality approach could be more effective - whereby the pastoral caregiver becomes a savior to the marginalized like Jesus was when He fulfilled the prophecy of Elisha and Elijah. Essentially, given that Latinos are also marginalized to a large extent, pastoral caregivers can bring about spiritual transformation and reconciliation. Pastoral caregivers can also provide religious support to Latinos by availing social networks of resistance and care. In the context of the North American Asian communities, pastoral caregivers can make use of an approach that could be deemed enlivening and enhancing. This is more so the case given that the said communities are in some cases under pressure to adapt and conform to dominant values and norms.