By Laurie Hallstrom

Dr. Peter Malinoski, Indianapolis, Indiana, was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Social Services annual fundraiser, Palm Sunday Brunch, March 29. He specializes in healing wounds that bridge the natural and spiritual realms with particular focus on factors that thwart one’s capacity to receive and give love with God. He is the co-founder of Souls & Hearts and he produces a podcast, “Interior Integration for Catholics.”

He began his address citing a Pew Research study that said 8.4 adults in the United States leave the Catholic Church for every one adult that joins the Catholic Church.

As a clinical psychologist trained in statistical analysis, he thought the research questions did not tackle a critical issue. He said people leave because they have unmet needs in their human formation. “They leave because they don’t believe that the Church has the answers and remedies to their problems and more specifically they don’t believe that their deep unmet needs — attachment — and identity questions are going to be adequately answered by the Church,” he said. “In my 30 years of treating clients these are the things that come up over and over again.”

Malinoski continued, “I’m all about human formation.” He said that wasn’t defined in the Catholic Church until a few years ago when it was included in documents that govern the formation of seminarians and priests. He boiled it down to, “You can’t give what you don’t have.” He recalled John Welwood, a psychologist in the 1980s noticing that people participating in Buddhist meditation were freaking out. Welwood concluded it was because their human formation issues were getting bypassed using spiritual practices to sidestep or avoid personal and emotional unfinished business, to shore up the shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic feelings and psychological needs.

Malinoski presented the example of someone who cannot identify with God the Father because their earthly father figures did not provide relatable examples.

“If you continue to flee from God for whatever reason, you’re going to end up alienated,” he said. He continued explaining, “Human formation is not some sort of narcissistic navel gazing where we light the aromatherapy candles, play music and tell ourselves that we’re okay.” He said it is about equipping ourselves to carry out the commandments to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. “If you don’t love yourself in an ordered way, if you don’t value yourself, how are you going to make a gift of yourself (to others)?” he asked. Malinoski repeated that whatever you do for the least of your brethren — meeting physical needs (hunger, clothing, shelter) or emotional needs (relationship, forgiveness, or healing), that you do to Christ. He said these needs must be met before people can absorb the Gospel.

Then Malinoski issued a caveat, “What if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself — that these are within me. I myself stand in need of the arms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved?”

He explained to understand the conflicts you have with other people you want to understand the conflicts that you have within yourself. If you have a very difficult time dealing with yourself, it will be hard to handle anybody else’s human formation.

“We hide it from the world. We refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves,” said Malinoski. “Human formation and its essence is relational, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You know that it can include not only the relationship with our parents, who are our first formators, but also relationships with other people.”

He went on to praise Catholic Social Services, and other diocesan and parish programs designed to meet the needs of the whole person. “I get to hear a lot about what’s going on and I have never seen this combination of the variety of excellence in human formation offerings at this level. You see all of this human formation coming from the diocese of 21,000 Catholics — that blows my mind, that’s incredible, that’s impressive so support it.” He asked for prayers, volunteers and money to keep these programs working. More on his work can be found at soulsandhearts.com.

Dr. Grant Sasse, executive director of CSS gave remarks on the ways individual lives are improved by CSS programs. “Catholic social services is committed to being an organization that is guided by the rich teachings of the church,” he said. “Over the next year, one major area that CSS cannot look away from is the unmet needs of our aging population. Saint Anne’s Aging Services was established this past August as part of an initiative to support Rapid City’s growing senior population.

“We were recently just honored with a Beyond Idea grant through the South Dakota Community Foundation which recognizes and invests in innovative community based solutions to address local needs. Our senior companion program is growing with 10 dedicated volunteers currently providing friendly visits and practical help to local seniors. Our home sharing program currently has three active agreements and two additional matches in progress.”

He also gave updates on their single parent education program, faith-based counseling, adoption, suicide prevention, disaster relief, and other programs. Services are offered regardless of religious affiliation. Counseling is offered on a sliding scale fee and available through telehealth. Those looking for more information may contact CSS at 605-348-6086 or go to cssrapid city.com.