I visited a good friend in a nursing home recently and it was clear that the hours were few. I asked the head nurse if the priest had administered the Last Rites. She wasn’t sure, but she noted that either the priest or a nun they had on staff would be available to do so 24 hrs a day if the need arose. I left it at that, but I was quite surprised that they would allow a nun to administer the Last Rites. This is a Catholic facility, and the nurse seemed to understand what I was asking. Can a nun do this?
Since you say that this is a Catholic facility, as a priest I presume that the head nurse is trying to answer your question as best she can, since the terminology you are using is antiquated and no longer suited to how we minister.
I do not ever give “last rites”. I act according to the provisions of either the “pastoral care of the sick” or the “pastoral care of the dying.”
- When I first see a patient, I make a pastoral assessment of the patient’s situation and need and prognosis.
- If they’re not Catholic, I do what I am able, either to assist them myself or to arrange pastoral care for them from their own Church/ecclesial community, if it can be had. I minister under the constraints I operate under…and at times, because of the unique situation, Can 844 becomes very important, actually. Our bishop is very good…Deo gratias.
- If they’re Catholic, I begin by asking if they practice the faith. If they’re not, I visit with them about that, if they wish, to work through that. These conversations are critical if the prognosis is terminal.
- If they’re practicing the faith, we begin talking about the sacraments…the need for absolution (auricular confession may or may not be possible if one is on a ventilator, they are in a non private room, on a ward, or even a carved out space in the casualty department (emergency room)).
- I also would anoint them as soon as the criteria for doing so is met.
- And finally also provide them regularly with Holy Communion (if they can receive anything, even a fraction of the Host, by mouth).
- All of this, of course, is done in conjunction with the non-ordained pastoral care team of seminarians, religious, & lay volunteers who help the priest (in so far as they can) carry the burden of caring for the sick, praying with the patients, their families, etc. There are days, for example, when they have to take all the Communion calls & family visits because I am too pressed by things only I, as a priest, can do.
I have had it happen where it was necessary to baptise, confirm, anoint and give viaticum in quite short order! That is more unusual.
Thankfully, most patients recover & we try to liaise to their proper priest to make sure their pastoral care is transferred to their own parish.
Sometimes, the patient continues to decline toward death and we follow that progression…but note that we have been providing pastoral care and the sacraments throughout this continuum…not waiting for the approach of death.
- Sister, obviously, would not absolve the patient or anoint the patient; she can certainly baptise in my place a dying person, if necessary. If it’s a baby, there is nothing more to do for the child sacramentally, although I will proceed to confirm the child, if the death is all but certain to occur and, of course, whoever is available from the pastoral care team comes to regularly pray over the baby and with the family.
- For those older, Sister or someone else can give Holy Communion, even as Viaticum, as an extraordinary minister.
- If she is a chaplain or pastoral care associate, she also can be the one to do visits to the sick and provide pastoral care and support to them and their families.
- Depending on shifts, it can fall to her ultimately, on her duty watch, to say the prayers for the dying and the commendation of the soul, and to pray with the family after death…since all of this does not involve either absolution or anointing. That would all have been done before death is proximate and typically those sacraments would not be repeated; there is no need.
Since this person was the recipient of regular pastoral care, God forbid that absolution or anointing was delayed till the person’s final few hours since those sacraments, thanks to the liturgical reform, are explicitly to be celebrated when full, conscious and active participation is possible by the person whose pilgrimage is coming to an end and their gathered family and loved ones with them.
Today, pastoral care of the sick is done using more of a team approach than in the decades when we spoke of “last rites” or the priest arrived just before death and just ahead of the undertaker, as one of my older confreres still describes those days.
The sacramental needs, requiring a priestly intervention, can often be provided in a way that provides them to the patient while cognizant the priest likely has other duties…especially in a hospice setting or nursing home setting where the decline can be foreseen and there are fewer sudden onset crises such as the healthy person felled by a fatal heart attack rushed to the emergency an who needs an unforeseen emergency pastoral care intervention with a window of minutes to a few hours.
Those charged with animating the pastoral care of the hospital or nursing home, in turn, will supply for all that they can in the absence of the priest. It is no longer possible in many places to have a priest attending the dying but the sacramental needs can be addressed through careful planning and provision and the accompaniment in the last journey can be done by someone who is not a priest.
I would understand that the nurse, therefore, was telling you that when the end came, at whatever hour, the on-call chaplain would come to accompany the dying person with watch and prayer to her journey’s end. This is how we minister today.
I think he meant, " Absolutely not! Only an ordained presbyter or Bishop…"