Next academic year, the University of Navarra is launching its own degree program. It is the Permanent Formation Program in Spiritual Accompaniment and Conflict Resolution.
A project aimed at people involved in human and Christian formation, in spiritual accompaniment and in the governance of educational or ecclesiastical institutions.
The program aims to provide these people with the basic tools to correctly approach and help people with problems in their personal, family, social and work life.
José María Pardo, priest, doctor in Medicine and Surgery and in Moral Theology and director of this program highlights, in this interview for Omnes, the need for this program since, on many occasions, there is in people with formation tasks in the Church "a gap in basic psychological knowledge, which prevents them from attending in an adequate way to the people entrusted to them".
In recent years we speak of spiritual "accompaniment" but does it mean the same thing as "spiritual direction"?
-The term "accompaniment" is a more general term. Accompaniment can be exercised by many people and in various dimensions or areas of a person's life.
In the university environment, for example, there is the figure of the mentor, the professor who accompanies the student in university life. Or the coachingwhich accompanies its clients to achieve their objectives.
The term "spiritual direction" has been reserved for the sphere of the spiritual life, the interior life of the person. Traditionally it has been reserved for priests, because of its relation to the sacrament of Reconciliation.
Today, some lay people and consecrated persons also carry out this activity of accompanying people in their self-knowledge and in their relationship with God.
One of the open fronts of the Church today is the fight against spiritual abuse. How are cases of this nature detected and manifested?
-As in the matryoshkasThe broadest concept that encompasses all the others is "abuse of power" (whether of government or of moral authority), one form of which is "psychological abuse.
When this is done in the name of God, we are dealing with "spiritual abuse"; and within this, as its most serious form, we find "abuse of conscience", which can be defined as follows: those actions, carried out in the context of a relationship of spiritual direction or help, where the person who guides attributes to himself a divine authority - that is, he identifies his advice with the will of God - imposing himself on the identity, freedom and responsibility of the person guided in an area related to moral judgment.
Since the best prevention is education, it would be desirable that this delicate subject be part of the formation plans of seminaries and houses of formation, including a course on spiritual direction and on how to exercise the function of government in the Church.
One of the characteristics of the crystal generation is its low "resistance" to correction. Are we facing a complicated scenario when combining the necessary indication with hyperesthesia in the face of any "defeat"?
-Youth has many positive points and some horizons for improvement. One of these challenges is to allow themselves to be accompanied, advised and instructed. I would not dare to say that they do not want to face them, but that it is difficult for them, also because they are immersed in a society that proclaims "absolute freedom". To this, I can add that they may have had bad experiences or negative role models.
My experience with young people leads me to trust them. You cannot demand of them a perfection that does not correspond to their age, they are people under construction. Sometimes, those of us who are in charge of accompanying them are in a hurry, we want immediate results, radical changes. This is not possible, and even less so in the inner life of people. I always remember a piece of advice my father passed on to me: "snacks of patience and juices of good humor".
If you expect young people to change overnight, the best thing you can do is to dedicate yourself to something else. People have their times and rhythms. The important thing is not to abandon them, to let them know that you will always be available when they need you.
I confess to you two maxims that have served me well in my pastoral work with young people: "show, don't show" and "accompany, don't judge". When a young person sees that we trust him, that we treat him as an adult (not as a child) and that we want him to be the one who decides about his life, he begins to respond.
St. John Bosco already said: "Love what young people love, and they will learn to love what you want them to love". Moreover, without saying it in words, he is asking you to be his model, to accompany him.
The university stage is the most frequent age range of attendance to psychologists and consumption of psychotropic drugs today. Do we fall into the temptation of "psychologizing" life?
-In this area, the University of Navarra, of which I have been a member for more than thirty years, has created the Health and Wellness Unit as part of Strategy 2025. A multidisciplinary unit that supports the overall health (including mental health) of students and professionals.
Everyone is aware of the significant increase in psychic symptomatology in the current era, particularly in relation to anxiety, addictions, depression and professional stress.
The Faculty of Theology of this University has also warned that many trainers in Church-related centers detect a lack of basic psychological knowledge, which prevents them from adequately caring for the people entrusted to their care.
The dedication to formative tasks and spiritual accompaniment requires specific and profound knowledge of psychological normality and its variants as well as of possible disorders.
For all these reasons, it has seemed necessary to us to offer an in-depth formation in Psychology and related subjects, as a complement to the training of teachers, spiritual guides or persons related to managerial tasks or sensitive areas in both secular and religious educational entities. For this purpose, three Programs of Permanent Formation (PFP) have been designed: in Psychology and Moral Life; in Spiritual Accompaniment and Conflict Resolution; and in Diversity Management.
In these PFP, together with specific subjects of moral and spiritual theology, subjects of a more psychological profile are addressed, always seeking their application to the concrete situations in which many people find themselves; situations that end up having an impact on the moral and spiritual life of people.
The subjects of these programs are not designed as a mere study of psychology or exclusively technical knowledge. Since they are taught in a Faculty of Theology, the approach is necessarily multidisciplinary, focusing on their theological, spiritual and pastoral dimension.
When are we facing a real conflict and how to approach it?
-A conflict is a difference of interests, ideas, styles and perceptions that come into contact. Interpersonal conflicts are the ones we are most interested in. People get to know each other better when they resolve conflict together: it improves the quality of relationships and openness in conversations.
There are three main potential causes of conflict: personal differences, conflicting human tendencies and contextual causes (e.g. lack of space for dialogue in a company). This point is important, because the conflict can only be solved if the cause or causes are known.
Conflict resolution involves managing imperfection -one's own and that of others-, so it is necessary to deepen one's own knowledge and that of others in order to detect potential reasons for conflict and foster personal attitudes.
In particular, it can help to develop and enhance attitudes such as openness, flexibility, generosity to overcome one's own, willingness to reach consensus, etc.
The Ongoing Formation Program in Spiritual Accompaniment and Conflict Resolution
The Permanent Formation Program in Spiritual Accompaniment and Conflict Resolution is a degree of the University of Navarra. The course will be given at the Pamplona campus between October 26 and December 7, 2023.
It is composed of four subjects, which will focus on different scenarios of Christian life (priesthood, consecrated life and laity). They will address the centrality of freedom in personal choice and in the life of the person.
The influence of psychic factors, personality and external circumstances on the moral and spiritual life of the person will also be discussed. Likewise, the detection, classification, influence and treatments of the most relevant psychiatric disorders will be studied in depth and, finally, the approach and resolution of personal, family and community conflicts will be dealt with.
