This article deals with the possible roles of professionals in the process of ritual counselling of dying patients in hospital. The key question is: how can rituals performed for the dying in spiritual care meet the diverse needs of patients and what is the professional's role in this regard? The contexts explored are Dutch hospitals in which spiritual caregivers are often not religiously bound. The patients asking for ritual guidance are also in most of the cases religiously unaffiliated. What kinds of rituals can be performed then to enact the process of dying, and from what sources can those rituals be derived? What kind of professional skills are needed when professionals try to meet patients' needs? Those kinds of questions are dealt with from a theoretical and practical perspective. The research material presented has been gathered in projects with professionals, observations and educational programmes in the Netherlands.
This article deals with the use of personal symbols in Roman Catholic funerals in the Netherlands. I propose to reflect on the way in which personal symbols give expression to memory in these rites, relying on the work of Jan Assmann and Louis-Marie Chauvet. Assmann distinguishes several dimensions of memory. Chauvet develops a liturgical view on how symbols not only signify but actualise memory. The main question is: How are different dimensions of memory expressed in terms of personal symbols in Roman Catholic funerals? I shall illustrate my findings by way of qualitative and quantitative data collected from funeral-goers and Roman Catholic chaplains in the Netherlands.
In the Dutch migration context, the deployment of Islamic ritual experts in the ritual cleansing of the deceased has become very common. The imams of the local mosques are performing death rites as part of their professional duties but there is a growing number of 'volunteers' involved. An upcoming phenomenon in the migration context and although widely deployed, they are the same time rather invisible. What motivates these people to become involved in death rites of people they often do not know? And how is their ritual authority recognised? A multi-layered approach provides insight in the expert's role and their motivation and authority at a personal level as well as at a social (interpersonal) and a religious (transpersonal) level. It shows the various configurations that make up each expert's motivation and authority. This approach hands insights in the diversity of Muslim communities in a small town migration context. Tangible leads that can help professionals to provide more tailor made assistance to Muslims and migrants in cases of death. Vignettes are drawn from qualitative research data collected from fieldwork (interviews, observations and participations) conducted in Venlo (NL).
In this article the authors focus on Roman Catholic funeral rites, and investigate how the past and future of the deceased are reflected in the attitudes of participants at these funerals. The main question of the article is: In what sense are past and future of the deceased represented in Roman Catholic funerals today, as reflected in the attitudes of participants? Past and future are aspects of memory. According to Jan Assman, rituals have a unique possibility to enact different types of memory through which a "we-identity" is shaped. The theoretical framework of Assman is used to describe the anamnetic-epicletic nature of Roman Catholic funeral liturgy. On the background of this theoretical framework the results of a research are described into the attitudes of more than 220 participants of Roman Catholic funerals with regard to past and future of the deceased in the Netherlands.
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