Each student is required to take one unit of CPE [1], which totals 400 hours.  This is normally done in the summer before their residency year.  CPE helps the student to grow in ministerial and pastoral skills, especially in ecumenical environments.  Although CPE programs allow for a variety of locations and types of clinical pastoral care, the Western Province generally desires that the student focus on hospital care.  After ordination to the priesthood, it is very common to visit the sick, but also to administer the sacraments in hospital settings, homes, and other locations where you may find the aged, infirm, and dying.  The student acquires specific skills for ministerial situations of anxiety, depression, fear, grief, etc., but in a wider sense acquires pastoral skills that help in the care of souls.

[1] Acts (1999), 97-98; RFP, 26

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