Teacher calls it a career to become army preacher
Sunday July 6 2008
By Robert Smol, Special to the Guardian
After more than 20 years as a teacher and religious education and adult faith consultant with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, Gillian Federico is finally calling it quits— sort of.
A Pastoral Associate with the Roman Catholic Church and long-time army reserve officer Federico, who holds the rank of major will now be serving full-time with the Canadian Forces as part of the Chaplaincy team at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa (near Ottawa) where many of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan are based.
For this mother of six, a post-retirement career with the Canadian Forces is the natural culmination of more than 15 years spent serving as a chaplain with the Army Reserve in Toronto .
“One of the tasks of the chaplain is to take care of the spiritual welfare of the troops which can encompass many, many dimensions because spiritual welfare becomes often a touchstone for other types of welfare,” she said.
According to friends and colleagues, Federico moves with ease between her roles as teacher/consultant and military chaplain actively carrying over best practices from both.
“What she has learned from her military, she has incorporated in her role as a teacher educator consultant and that inner connectivity has been a real gift to us,” said Mike Bator, former superintendent of Education at Dufferin-Peel who had known Federico for more than 30 years.
Among the tasks Federico will be focused on in her new job as military chaplain will be screening soldiers before they proceed overseas in order to identify potential areas of concern in their personal lives that might interfere with their being able to do their jobs.
“Before anybody is ever deployed overseas they have a meeting with the chaplain to talk about family concerns or anything that might interfere with them being able to give their whole attention to what they are doing” she said.
“Because we are not in the chain of command, there are not the same kind of career implications or threat in talking to a chaplain that there might be talking to others in the chain of command. We are also responsible to the families of the people who are deployed to try and give them some level of comfort to let them know that their families are being looked after and that their needs are being met.”
And this work often continues after the soldier comes home.
“As they prepare to come home we do a lot of work in preparing people for the kind of emotional issues that may surface either during deployment or as the member is re-deployed to Canada and trying to help prepare them and supporting them through that process,” she said.
Apart from her experiences in teaching and serving as a military chaplain, much of her skill in assisting people with spiritual and welfare issues has emerged from her years of active involvement with her own parish in Brampton.
“Gillian has been involved in catechesis for both adults and children here in the parish,” said Father Damian Ali, parish priest for St. Anne Roman Catholic Church in Brampton.
“She leads one of our Sunday choirs and she also leads evening prayer the second Sunday of the month. The big key about Federico is her dedication and her commitment, even for just a few people she will be there because that is just the person she is.”
“I have always been impressed with her sincerity, dedication and commitment,” said Brampton teacher and retired army officer Robert Walsh who has worked with Federico on various occasions. “ She is selfless in her devotion to others. On many occasions I and many others have turned to her for counselling and guidance on issues of personal as well as spiritual matters.”
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