Abstract:
Pastoral care in the context of hospital visiting is entitled hospital chaplaincy. The initial three
chapters of this paper analyze themes which are the biblical theological foundations of
hospital chaplaincy. The first deals with the concept of taking care, the meaning of this action
and its importance towards human life grounded on the theology of imago Dei, according to
Genesis1.26-27. The second part of the paper presents the human being based on the biblical
anthropology and the concepts of soul, heart, flesh and body. These anthropological notions
present the human being solely in terms of existence and as a live unit animated by God. The
third part describes the features of pastoral action related to the concept of pastoral care. The
term refers to the metaphor of pastoralising the herd of God and is founded by the biblical
image of God-shepherd and Christ as the good shepherd. Therefore, the chapter sheds light to
conceptualizing, mainly from John 10, the pastoral ministry of Christ, as well as it introduces
the pastoral care ministry as a means of expression of the Christian community along the
history of the Church. The fourth chapter is briefly developed under a historical perspective of
the hospital, it aims at grounding the hospital assistance as a human act from the theme of
human dignity. Moreover, it leads to the necessity of integral care to the patient. The paper
finishes by approaching the beginnings of Clinical Pastoral Training and its borders to
psychology, it also ends by presenting the contents which were described in the previous
chapters as biblical theological foundations of hospital chaplaincy: the human dignity, the
biblical anthropology and the pastoral ministry of Christ.
