Lancaster School of Psychodrama and Experiential Psychotherapies
  • Home
  • Events
  • Online training
  • About
    • About Karen
    • Staff
  • Methods
    • Psychodrama
    • Family Constellations
    • Sand tray
    • Tarot
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Sand tray figures for sale
  • Home
  • Events
  • Online training
  • About
    • About Karen
    • Staff
  • Methods
    • Psychodrama
    • Family Constellations
    • Sand tray
    • Tarot
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Sand tray figures for sale
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

9/15/2019 0 Comments

Father Bill: A ministry of inclusion

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

A milestone – the death of William J. Hultberg, the longtime chaplain at the Caron Treatment Centers on where he was known by everyone as “Father Bill.”

He was a Vietnam veteran and the first Roman Catholic priest who I knew who wore faded blue jeans under his vestments. He helped thousands of recovering alcoholics and addicts to a better life with his sermons and encouragement.

People, including me when I worked at Caron, loved his Sunday services at the little chapel on the campus at Wernersville, Pa., which were more like free-range 12-step meetings than anything I knew growing up Catholic.

Bill grew up as a child of a chaotic alcoholic family and was personally familiar with the trauma of family pain. He served during the Vietnam War as a chaplain, becoming familiar with the trauma of battle. After he returned home from Vietnam, he was surprised as anyone that he became addicted to pills and alcohol, which eventually led him to treatment and recovery.

His ministry became the care and inspiration of those suffering alcoholism and addiction. Rather than sit quietly in his office, he roamed the halls of the treatment, wanting to be available when a newly recovering addict just learned that his wife decided to leave him or struggled with the guilt and shame of the consequences of addiction. He wasn’t always delicate or diplomatic with his language – he once bluntly told a little boy whose parents were alcoholics that the child was doomed to be an alcoholic as well! – and was known to toss the “F-bomb” out from time to time during Sunday services.

“It gets their attention,” he said, speaking of the younger people in the chapel.

He regularly spoke up about the stigma of addiction and worked mightily to reverse it. Once, a bunch of teenagers, all hulking and silent in their hoodies and long hair, arrived at the chapel for a service and slumped down into a section of a wooden pew. Someone said, pointing to one, “He’s a good kid.” Bill said, “They’re all good kids.”

That was another thing. Bill was inclusive, long before the word became popular. He embraced all addicts and alcoholics, as well as people suffering with AIDS and HIV diagnoses, and initiated special retreat for these patients.

Sometimes someone would arrive at a Sunday service, steaming with pain and shame. Sometimes the pain and shame related to AIDS, or criminal activity or the simple fact of enslavement by addiction. Bill would call the person to the altar, place his arm gently around the person’s shoulders and told the person to ask this eight-word question to the congregation:

“Will you love me just as I am?”

And the person would say, sometimes timidly and sometimes with eyes filled with tears, “Will you love me just as I am?”
The congregation would roar out a “Yes!”

As a newer psychotherapist, I carefully watched Bill’s version of ministry, not fully sure of my own. Not surprisingly, his style of ministry appealed especially to men – an obvious fact, considering his background of the Roman Catholic priesthood and then with men serving in the U.S. armed forces overseas.

By definition, ministry relates to the duties of a minister, rabbi or other clergy person. Those duties are the work that the religious leader does in serving a congregation – learning of and attending to others' needs. Yet on a larger scale, those of us who serve have our own ministries, spreading the work that we believe in, attempting to be available to people, to help, to encourage, to include.

At the official Caron service a few days after his Sept. 6 death, that mood continued in a newer and larger auditorium on campus that could accommodate more of a crowd. But even in this shiny new space, the service was just as powerful – memories, eulogies, laughter and lots of grown men crying. (And women too, like me). The room was decorated with banners with several of his favorite sayings, words that he told again and again to his flock, which sometimes people called “Father Bill-isms.”

One of his favorite sayings says it all: “We are not bad people trying to be good; we are sick people trying to get well.”
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP, is an author, trainer and psychotherapist who promotes, practices and teaches experiential methods including psychodrama, Family and Systemic Constellations, mindfulness and Tarot imagery.

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015

    Categories

    All 2016 2017 2020 2021 Conference Abuse Adam Blatner African Americans Alan Swanson Alison Mezey American Society Of Group Psychotherapy And Psychodrama Ancestor Healing Anger Anti-racism Anxiety Art Of Play ASGPP Authenticity Azizi Marshall Bert Hellinger Brain Science Breathe CE Credits Chicago Christmas Conference #constellatepeace Constellation Work Coronavirus COVID Dear Abby Decolonizing Mental Health Decolonizing Therapy Documentary Series Donald Trump Dr. J.L Moreno Eating Disorders Edward Tick Election Day 2016 Empathy Essential Oils Experiential Psychotherapies Experiential Psychotherapy Ex[periential Therapies Family Constellations Food Gratitude Group Psychotherapy Groups Group Skills Health Hidden Messsages Of Water Hoarding Illness Intergenerational Trauma Interview Japan Joseph Moreno Juneteenth Karen Carnabucci Kate Hudgins Kenosha Lancaster Lancaster School Of Psychodrama & Experiential Psychotherapies LIberty Place Light Linda Ciotola LNP Love Marcia Karp Mark Wolynn Masaru Emoto Meditation Memoirs Mental Illness Mice Study Nancy Alexander Neurobiology New Year Office Office Protocol Online Conference Online Training Pandemic Play Playback Theatre Play Therapy Politics Practice Space Psychodrama Psychodrama Books Psychotherapy Puppets Racism Regina Moreno Reiki Resources Rice Experiment Ritual River Crossing Playback Theatre San Bernardino Sand Tray Schaumburg Seed Point Selena Fox Self Care Self Love Sleep Social Change Social Justice Sociodrama Sociometry Solstice Spirituality Spiritualty Spring Equinox Stephan Hausner Stress Studies Stuffed Animals Systemic Constellations Systemic View Thanksgiving Theatre Of The Oppressed The New York Times Therapeutic Spiral Model Training Transformation Trauma U.S. Election Vacation Vaccine Veterans Video Training Visualization Warm Up William Moreno Winter Solistice Wisconsin Women's March Yoga YouTube Zerka T. Moreno

    RSS Feed

Located in beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania


What People Say

  • “A wonderful mix of relaxed professionalism, humor and up-to-date information.”

  •  “…awakened my creative spirit and pushed me to stretch myself professionally and personally beyond what I could have done with any other type of training programs.”

  • "She inspired the rest of our team with her ready smile and easy-going presence."

Subscribe to Karen's e-letter!

Join our mailing list today!
Subscribe!
Photos used under Creative Commons from anieto2k, CrimsonDarko