Pastoral care between end-of-life care and Christmas spirit

Franz Eisenmann puts on a gown and ties it at his waist, then a protective plastic cover at the front, which a helper ties up behind his back. A hood, Perspex glasses, a FFP2 virus-filtering mask over his nose and mouth. And gloves. "Two pairs of gloves, one over the other," the 55-year-old says.

He calmly describes the preparation it takes before he is allowed to step through the airlock and enter the COVID-19 ward of the hospital in Mühldorf am Inn.

Eisenmann has been a Catholic priest for the past 27 years. He's based in Upper Bavaria, between Altötting and the Alps, a good hour's drive east of Munich. "It's a rural region," he told DW. "The people are still very connected with the Church."

Since mid-October, the clergyman has also been working time and again at the hospital in nearby Mühldorf, the district town. "At my first assignment I was already very nervous. I didn't know much about the situation I was going into." He describes how his clothes were soaked through with sweat by the time he left the COVID ward: "on the one hand, because of the plastic protective clothing, and on the other hand also because of nervousness. I was in rooms that the virus is also in, after all." 

Patients 'not left alone'

Eisenmann is part of a project that his Archdiocese Munich-Freising began early this year, in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It was becoming clear how many sick and dying people were in the hospitals without relatives or any kind of company, perhaps sometimes dying alone.  

The Archdiocese formed a team of several dozen and trained them in protective measures, to make sure that priests were accessible. Always. "Here in our region, it means a lot to people when someone from the Church turns up. When they feel that they will not be left alone. And they want a priest." There are "not so many priests" who also go on to COVID wards.  

Sometimes, Eisenmann stays by the patient's bedside in silence. If patients are alert, he occasionally has them take part in Communion. He always prays and blesses them. It's what a priest can do. "It's agreed that we don't stay too long in the rooms, for our own protection and for the protection of the staff."

The nurses' anger 

It's not Eisenmann's task to care for the hospital staff — that's currently the job of Martin Kuhn, who work as the clinic's pastoral consultant. But now and again he pays a visit to the nurses, for example on the eve of St. Nicholas' Day earlier in December, when at 9 o'clock in the evening, after visiting patients, he went to the nurses and handed out traditional chocolate St. Nicholas figures. When he retells his encounter with a 25-year-old nurse, it's clear how affected he was. On that day alone she was twice "verbally abused by patients' relatives. We slave away day after day, work overtime all the time, put ourselves at risk of becoming infected — and then we have to put up with being snapped at."   

Since October, Eisenmann has visited many coronavirus patients and sat with six people as they died in hospital. "It's very moving," he says, how they could sense that there was someone there. The people, who were all older than 75, were mostly no longer able to speak themselves, but could understand him. "They are elderly people who have been close with the church since their childhood days." 

"These challenges, that people are dying truly alone, without relatives, without loved ones, it's such a bizarre situation," he says, something which greatly affects the people in the small villages the patients come from. 

Farewells and grief amid pandemic

Up until a few weeks ago the 270-bed clinic that Eisenmann visits had one ward which had been specially set up for coronavirus patients. In the meantime, the two stories above are also occupied with people suffering from COVID-19.

And now, Christmas is coming. In a normal year the nativity play would be practiced in the 500-year-old parish church of Neumarkt in the days before the festival. The church would be packed for Midnight Mass. Now the nativity scene is displayed in a village shop window and Eisenmann celebrates Mass in the early evening with only a few believers. "I'm sure people will listen differently this year," he says.  

His thoughts for the sermon: "It's about this, that God sent the light into the darkness of time, into the dark, inhospitable stable of Bethlehem. That still applies to us today. God wants to be there for us in the darkness of our days. He doesn't leave us alone."

This article was translated from German.