Catholic Faith-Based Healing

The sound of Sunday morning hymns faded into the background as I walked out of the doors of Saint Agatha-Saint James Church and headed toward the rectory. I found Father Jim McGuinn, the local priest and pastor of University City, waiting in his office, just as he promised he would be after mass. He greeted me with his usual warmth, and we sat down to begin the interview. I began with an open-ended question: “In what ways do you, as a priest, see yourself as a healer in our community?” I watched him process the question for a few moments, very carefully contriving his wording so as to not misrepresent the Catholic Church. Over the course of the next hour he would give me his answer. This answer would lead me to view the role of faith-based healing in a much larger context than I ever previously had.

What is faith-based healing? It can be generically defined as healing through spiritual means, healing brought about through prayer or rituals, or healing through the stimulation of a divine presence and power (Village, pg. 98). Father Jim believed that these definitions were lacking, however. According to Father Jim, faith-based healing must be considered through its relationships with other forms of healing. The health of one’s spirit is intrinsically connected to psychological, emotional, and physical health. Thus, faith-based healing functions as a part of a larger healing network.

Within a community’s network of healing, spiritual health is connected to psychological and emotional health. Father Jim discussed that, as a priest, he finds a person’s spiritual life can affect his/her psychological and emotional state. That is, individuals with troubles in their spiritual lives often suffer psychologically and em...

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...cted. Good discusses that historically there are often “sharp conflicts between the natural sciences and religion” (Good, pg. 73). This need not be the case, however. Scholars such as Poss, Jezewski, Sahota, and even Dr. Jun J. Mao in his studies of acupuncture demonstrate that there are many instances in which non-biomedical forms of healing can be used to alleviate suffering. This applies to the faith-based healing performed by a priest. The traditions of the Catholic Church hold enormous cultural weight for millions of individuals, and thus the Church’s healing practices have considerable influence in society. When the Church’s faith-based healing functions as a part of a the larger network of healing, it is able to use its cultural influence to promote more effective health care and direct the community toward the ultimate acquisition of the common good.