By Rocky Biasi
Priests spend a lot of their week in conversations they never put in the diary. A parishioner waits after Mass. Someone rings late at night. At a hospital bedside, a person starts talking about a marriage, a fear, or something they have never said out loud before.
None of it happens in a counselling room, on a schedule, with a plan. It happens because the priest is there, and because people trust him.
That is the space I have been working in recently, delivering Accidental Counsellor training to priests of the Archdiocese of Sydney. The aim is not to turn priests into psychologists. It is to help them respond well in the two minutes before someone decides whether it is safe to say more.
An accidental counsellor is anyone who finds themselves listening and responding to another person’s emotional distress without being their counsellor or therapist. Teachers, nurses, coaches, volunteers and priests all find themselves in that position.
The training is practical: how to stay steady, how to connect before trying to solve, and when someone else needs to become involved.
When a person is distressed, our instinct is often to make it better. We fix. We find the silver lining. We offer a wise word.
In the training I call those three traps by name — Fixing, Silver-Lining and Wisdom — because once we recognise them, we are more likely to catch ourselves doing them.
None of them come from a bad place. The problem is usually timing. “I’m sure it will be all right” may be intended as reassurance, but offered before someone feels understood, it can land like a door closing.
The same is true when we tell someone what they must be feeling. “You must be devastated” sounds empathic, but it still puts our interpretation onto their experience.
What we practise is reflecting the experience rather than labelling the emotion: “It sounds like a lot has changed very quickly. Have I got that right?” You are not assuming. You are checking that you have understood.
Connection comes first. Listen a little longer. Say a little less. Use the person’s words where you can. Recognise, don’t diagnose.
A priest does not need to name a condition. He needs to notice that someone is struggling, respond with care, and work out what the moment needs: more connection, a useful question, or action.
A good question can help someone find a next step. “What have you already tried?” “What would help, even a little?” “What is the next best step?”
The aim is not to resolve everything. Sometimes it is simply to help someone feel heard and move towards professional support.
Where safety is in question, we need to be more direct. If you are worried someone may be thinking about ending their life, asking clearly and calmly does not put the idea in their head.
If those thoughts are already there, naming them without panic can make it easier for someone to talk about what they are carrying.
Where a disclosure raises safeguarding concerns – where a child, or any person at risk, may be involved – that information needs to move, promptly and properly, through the appropriate safeguarding pathway, including the archdiocese’s own processes where they apply.
Knowing that before you need it is what lets you stay steady in the conversation, rather than freezing, deflecting, or hoping it was nothing.
That is why boundaries matter. You can be fully present without becoming someone’s therapist. Knowing the limits of your role is not a failure of compassion – it is often the most caring thing available.
The other part of the training is what I call Care Without Carrying.
Priests hear a great deal, often week after week. We talk about how to stay steady during a difficult conversation and how to reset afterwards, rather than carrying every story home with you.
That is not detachment. A priest who can put down what is not his to hold stays more available for the next person, not less. One who is quietly depleted notices less, not more.
People who approach a priest after Mass, in a hospital room or in the middle of a crisis do not need the perfect sentence. They need to know they have been noticed, heard and taken seriously.
Those first two minutes can shape whether they feel safe enough to keep talking. The most powerful thing we can offer is not always advice. Often, it is presence – followed by the judgement to know what needs to happen next.
Every person carrying something heavy is asking a quiet question: is it safe to tell you? Our job is to make it easier for the answer to be yes – and then know what to do next.
Rocky Biasi is a mental health educator, founder of Human Connections, and creator of Accidental Counsellor Training. https://humanconnections.com.au/
