Classis In The News

PASTOR FINDS UNIQUE MINISTRY AT TORONTO AIDS HOSPICE

By Sophie Vandenberg

The emphasis is on living, not dying, at Toronto’s Casey House Hospice, where Rev. Phil Weaver is the pastoral counsellor.  Weaver, associate pastor of First Christian Reformed Church, Toronto, began working at the health-care facility last May.  The hospice provides palliative and supportive care for people with HIV/AIDS.

“As far as I know it’s the first free-standing AIDS hospice in the world,” said Weaver.  Funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health, Casey House has a 13-bed residence program as well as a community program with the capacity to provide in-home support for up to 150 more people.

Last fall Classis Toronto declared the chaplaincy position at Casey House to be ministerial in character, judging Weaver’s work to be in keeping with his ministerial credentials.  “While some may be frustrated by the way synod’s pastoral guidelines around care of homosexuals are not followed will in local congregational practice, there are places in the Christian Reformed Church where those sensitivities are more operationalized,” said Weaver.

Weaver, who provided palliative care to Alzheimer’s patients as chaplain at Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital in Thunder Bay, Ontario, finds his work rewarding.  “I was interested in doing more with the palliative care piece and with providing support [to people] through loss and bereavement.  Many no longer have a faith community, but there is a spiritual need and often people don’t know where to go with that,” he said. 

Weaver explains that a lot of his work is that of coordination, helping people to identify what spiritual resources are available in their own faith traditions.  He works with the patients themselves and supports their families and caregivers.  “there can be caregiving burnout.  I try to help people find resources within themselves to care for others,” he said.

From The Banner, March 2004.  Used by permission.