Pastoral Creativity Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic: Global Experiences

Edited by Anthony Le Duc and John Mi Shen (Asian Research Center for Religion and Social Communication). Manila: Logos Publications, 2021.

About the book:

Pastoral Creativity Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Global Experiences chronicles the pastoral responses that pastoral agents, ordained and lay, implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic from first-person narratives woven together to form a tapestry of rich and moving personal stories. The essays come from over a dozen countries around the world, with many of the authors working in cross-cultural contexts. It also enlists the collaboration of professional theologians to dialogue with these real-world experiences in order to present observations and insights that reveal themselves in these inspiring accounts. The book hopes to contribute to the ongoing conversation and reflection about the various dimensions of the pandemic, in particular, highlighting the pastoral creativity needed to sustain the life of the Church during one of the most dramatic times in contemporary human history.

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“What makes this book precious is that it is not a collection of ‘recipes’ for pastoral service, but rather an invitation to keep the dialogue open, to reflect on what we have learnt from this new condition, and on how the Church should answer to the need of belongingness that emerged from this unprecedented time…Concrete stories on concrete encounters is what inspires the desire and encourages the effort to prepare more encounters between God and humanity. After all, pastoral creativity - with or without the pandemic - is an art of preparing the encounters! And the pandemic probably helps us to understand it better.”

Prof. Nataša Govekar, Director of the Theological-Pastoral Department, Dicastery for Communication, Vatican

“…Pastoral reflections, strategies and actions--be they collective or individual- have come as the expression of the Church’s concern to be close to the flock in the time of need… [The authors’] thoughts and experiences will certainly encourage each one of us to know that we are not alone, that we do not withdraw into our comfort zones, but are called to be like our Master, the Good Shepherd, to reach out to and tend the flock entrusted to us.”

Fr. George Plathottam, SDB, Executive Secretary, FABC Office of Social Communication

“Reading the different contributions in this book…touches my heart and assures me that many people still give their ‘widows’ mite’ for others and thereby prove that in a much deeper sense we are indeed together in one and the same boat assisting each other as we row the boat together to safe harbor.”

Msgr. Esteban Lo, LRM, National Director, Pontifical Mission Societies in the Philippines

“The 28 authors in this book share their pastoral experiences and theological considerations in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their backgrounds are quite varied; they are from America, Asia, Europe and Oceania, as priests, religious or lay persons, working in parishes, religious houses, schools and social welfare institutions….Readers will be moved and encouraged from the process of how the authors overcome the difficulties and reach out to their flocks out of love. This book is a witness of how the ‘love of Christ impels us’ (2 Cor 5.14) in the ongoing pandemic.”

Most Rev. Daisuke Narui, SVD, Bishop of Niigata Diocese, Vice-president of Caritas Japan