Thanks Joseph. The answer is no not necessarily. Spiritual care of those who are dying includes a wide array of concerns but is always about what brings a sense of peace and courage and fortitude to the one who is facing death. These may include connecting a person to a church if they need that relation for comfort, but it also can include things like the healing of deep and long-lasting emotional and spiritual wounds, the resolution of interior beliefs that are causing stress, finding a positive sense of self, discovering a lasting sense of dignity and well-being, resolving family tensions, solving ethical dilemmas, reaching a peaceful solution to questions about eternity, experiencing forgiveness, the finding of ways to be not anxious or fearful, the use of prayer as therapy for emotional and physical pain, having one’s story listened to, even taking care of business; all of this and many other things constitute spiritual care for the dying.
Again if a person needs to be connected or re-connected to a church that is what they need and that is well and good. But I do want to add that sometimes well-meaning family members can actually harm a patient by forbidding contact with a church if the dying person desires it. The most common scenario involves onetime Roman Catholics who became Born Again Christians and who at the end of their life feel the need to be anointed by a priest in what were once but no longer are called The Last Rights. I am not Roman Catholic but to my way of thinking whatever a dying person requests they get. There is no room for grinding theological axes at their discomfort. All too often caregivers forget it is not about themselves.