Confession, Communion, and Mass in Hospital

Almost every hospital in the United States can get a Catholic patient to confession and Communion. Very few of them will raise it with you. The National Cancer Institute's own summary notes the gap: most patients say they would welcome having their spiritual needs addressed, and a very small minority report that anyone ever asked.

So the practical advice is unglamorous. Ask on the day you are admitted, before you need anything, while you still have the energy for a phone call.

Only a priest can hear a confession and give absolution. This matters because hospital chaplaincy teams are mixed. If you ring and ask for a chaplain, you may get a lay chaplain or a deacon, both of whom can pray with you and neither of whom can absolve you.

Use the words: I would like to see a Catholic priest for confession. Ask when a priest is next on site. Many hospitals have a priest for set hours with an on-call arrangement outside them.

The Ethical and Religious Directives put an obligation on Catholic facilities here that is worth knowing about if you are in one: "Particular care should be taken to provide and to publicize opportunities for patients or residents to receive the sacrament of Penance." If nothing has been publicized, you are entitled to ask why.

Privacy is a fair thing to request. A shared bay is not a confessional, and asking for the curtain, or for a roommate's visitors to step out for five minutes, is a normal request that staff will help with.

A priest, a deacon, or a trained lay minister can bring Communion to your room. The Directives describe this explicitly, and note that properly prepared lay Catholics can be appointed to visit patients, advise them about the availability of a priest for confession, and distribute Communion to those who request it.

In most hospitals this happens on a round, often daily or several times a week. Ask what days the minister comes to your floor and ask to be put on the list, because the list is usually what determines whether anyone knocks.

Two practical points:

• Fasting. The usual period of fasting before Communion is relaxed for people who are ill. If you have been eating, or are on continuous feeds, this is not a reason to decline. Say what your situation is and let the minister tell you.
• Swallowing. If you are nil by mouth, on a modified diet, or have mucositis or a swallowing problem, ask your nurse before you receive. This is a clinical question, not a religious one. Where receiving is not possible, a spiritual communion, which is simply a prayer expressing the desire, is a long-standing practice and requires nobody's permission.

Ask three questions: is there a chapel, what are the Mass times, and is there a television channel or livestream. Many cancer centers have a chapel and some have daily Mass. Many hospitals broadcast the Mass internally, which matters on days when getting down a corridor is not realistic.

If you are mobile, check with your nurse whether you are cleared to leave the ward, particularly if you are neutropenic or on isolation precautions. That is the constraint that most often gets in the way, and it is a genuine one.

Long infusion days, daily radiotherapy for weeks, and travel to a distant center all make an ordinary Sunday routine difficult. A few things people find useful:

• Ask the parish nearest the cancer center what their weekday Mass times are. They are often arranged around exactly this.
• Ask your own parish to add you to the list for home Communion visits. This is a standing service in most parishes and it is not reserved for the housebound elderly.
• If you are travelling for treatment and staying somewhere unfamiliar, the hospital's spiritual care office usually knows which local parish is used to hospital patients.

A significant share of hospital sacramental work involves people who have not been to Mass in years and are not sure whether they are welcome. You do not need to sort anything out before asking, and you do not need to explain yourself to whoever answers the phone. Say you would like to see a priest. That is enough information for the request to be handled.

You can make the call on someone's behalf. If the patient is too unwell to explain what they want, tell the chaplain what you know and what you are unsure about — that is useful information rather than a failure. And if you are not Catholic yourself, nobody will ask you about that.