By Vatican News
The Ministry of Hope conference brings together Church leaders, professionals, and pastoral workers from around the world to strengthen the Catholic Church’s pastoral engagement with mental wellbeing.
The three-day international event, organized with the support of the International Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers and under the patronage of the Pontifical Academy for Life, aims to foster listening, reflection, and collaboration among those accompanying individuals and communities facing psychological, social, and spiritual distress.
Against a backdrop of war, displacement, inequality, and social fragmentation, the conference seeks to deepen the Church’s understanding of how faith, community, and informed pastoral care can nurture healing and resilience.
The forum emphasizes that pastoral ministry must be both compassionate and prepared—grounded in human closeness, as well as in solid knowledge and discernment.
The conference opens on Wednesday afternoon with a public Mass at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia, next to Saint Peter’s Square, and coincides with Pope Leo XIV’s monthly prayer intention, this month focusing on suicide prevention.
It will be followed by a Pastoral Roundtable at the nearby conference venue featuring shared reflections and testimonies on suicide prevention and pastoral care. The aim is to raise awareness, foster communal prayer, and invite public participation in a spirit of solidarity and intercession.
The two-day invitation-only forum brings together approximately 50 participants, including clergy, religious, lay pastoral workers, mental health professionals, and individuals with lived experience.
The sessions will balance theological reflection with professional insight, encouraging open dialogue, mutual learning, and the sharing of practical approaches from diverse pastoral contexts, such as conflict zones, migrant communities, schools, and parishes.
The working conference will also feature the launch of a new document from the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, entitled “Mental Health & Pastoral Accompaniment in Contexts of Humanitarian Crisis.”
Core themes to be addressed include: “Contexts of Distress and Resilience”—understanding how suffering and resilience are expressed across today’s social, cultural, and geopolitical realities; “Lived Experience and Pastoral Practices”—exploring how pastoral ministries foster connection and accompaniment in parishes, schools, and communities; “Caring for the Caregivers and the Ministry of Presence”—integrating mental health knowledge into pastoral formation and ensuring the well-being of those who serve; and, “Theology, Anthropology, and the Question of Mental Well-Being”—reflecting on the meaning of mental well-being in light of Catholic theology, spirituality, and human anthropology.
The Ministry of Hope seeks to be more than an academic or professional exchange—it is a spiritual and pastoral encounter designed to renew the Church’s mission of accompaniment.
The forum invites participants to discern how the Church can continue fostering trust, dignity, and communion, particularly among those suffering from isolation, trauma, or despair. It also emphasizes the importance of forming ministers who can integrate psychological understanding with spiritual depth in their service. – Vatican News
