So I was there with the Japanese and then one Tuesday evening I received a phone call. This was on 15 January 2002. I received a phone call from my son Kiprop, the second born, and he said, "Daddy, Chang' (Chang'-Toek) has fallen ill. He has been taken to the hospital and he is in the ICU." I said, "What?" And then what immediately rang in my mind, because he was a pilot, I thought he must have crash-landed. He must have had a crash. I asked him, "How did he fall from the plane?" or something like this and my son Kiprop said, "No father." You see, Chang'-Toek and Kiprop were staying together in the US. So I started saying okay which particular hospital has he been taken to? He gave me the contacts and so forth. I just finished talking with the Japanese asking about KEMRI and our work together so in the morning I went to the office. I was not feeling very well. I was feeling very sad but I did the work as usual until evening because I thought he would recover.
Recently I traveled with Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, CHA’s president and chief executive officer, to St. Francis de Sales Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where we met with the three priests who have responsibility for management and direction of the hospital. In the course of our conversation, they voiced their struggles in managing the hospital’s mission of being the hospital for the poorest of Port-au-Prince’s population while attempting to maintain any semblance of a financial margin. It was fascinating to listen to their deliberations — the challenges and possibilities of seeking sustainability — in terms of attracting those who can pay while always serving those who are unable to do so.
Spirituality” names an important domain of human experience that has contours influenced by varied religious traditions, but it is not always tied to any religious tradition in particular. It is influenced by the vast array of individual experiences of inner life, especially as transformed by the transcendent.¹ These individual expressions sometimes become part of religious traditions, spiritual classics handed on from generation to generation.²
Enthusiastic statements like these stunned me when, years ago, I began leading formation groups. The goal was to help leaders pass on the Catholic health care tradition, not change their lives. Yet many participants said that’s what was happening. Today I have come to expect that although most formation participants will say the program improved their leadership, some also will say it was life-changing.¹
When we think about philanthropy and charity, we naturally think about the generosity of individuals who care about the well-being of others. In Catholic health care, we have the opportunity every day to see that generosity firsthand. We see generosity in the philanthropic and charitable gifts that made a Women and Infants Pavilion take shape at Ascension’s St. Vincent’s HealthCare in Jacksonville, Florida. In this pavilion, all women, regardless of their socioeconomic status or ability to pay, will receive the same state-of-the-art, compassionate care. That goes for St. Vincent’s heart centers and cancer centers and community outreach programs, all funded in part by the generosity of people who think about the importance of giving as part of their nature.
We have just moved into a season where the news of Jesus’ triumph over death will be front and center in our liturgical celebrations. As we passed through the celebration of the paschal mystery, we experienced suffering, the tomb of human death and the promise of eternal life fulfilled.
Charlie and A.J. Poole were 10 and 9 years old in 2013 when their grandmother, Helen Pomakoy, moved in with them. Her Alzheimer’s had been getting worse, and the boys’ mother, Sara, decided that bringing her to their McLean, Virginia, home was the best option.
The son of Irish immigrant parents, Bob Healey grew up during the Great Depression, and he remembers what it was like to be poor. “When you’re poor, you never forget that,” he said, describing how he wore pieces of cardboard in his shoes to cover the holes. It was this upbringing, along with his strong Catholic faith, that led the 87-year-old down a path of hard work and generosity.
The period from the 11th to 13th centuries witnessed the rise of a money economy in Europe. Cities grew and multiplied; more and more land was cultivated, increasing the wealth of landowners; and a new-sprung merchant class made it possible for those who were not part of the aristocracy to accumulate wealth.¹
I met him in the lobby of a large hotel in the Midwest as we were waiting for the doors to open to a panel discussion of health care experts. I noticed his name tag and recognized his Catholic health care system immediately. We had a common network. I introduced myself and discovered he was the system’s chief financial officer. We were having a pleasant chat when I asked him about his system's foundation.
The story of Catholic health care spans generations, continuing to serve as an unbroken link to the healing ministry of Jesus. Through the Spirit’s creative provision, the unique charisms that strengthened and sustained the sisters and brothers who went before us continue today in the hearts and minds of lay and religious alike.
I had not heard the concept of ministerial sponsorship before joining the Catholic Health Initiatives. At first, it struck me as arcane jargon that was relevant only in the niche of Catholic health care.
Life in the church changes and evolves. So do the ministries of the church, for the church’s works must remain relevant as the times change and evolve. Thus the relationship between the church and the Catholic health care ministry has been adapting to a modern era in which founding congregations gradually relinquish control of the entities they created.
There is no greater act of kindness than that of giving back, and of the many ways to give back, philanthropy is critical to health care. Dignity Health relies on philanthropic support to help it to grow and to move its hospitals and communities from good to great.
Philanthropy and community benefit have been closely related since the earliest days of health care. Religious and civic founders of the first nursing homes and hospitals received support from generous members of the community offering financial and volunteer resources. The connection remains today.
Almost a year ago at SCL Health, we launched an assessment of philanthropy across the organization. When it comes to fundraising, here’s the vital question: “Are we raising as much money as we possible can?"
In 1999, the Sisters of the Holy Cross and the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas came together, assessed the past, examined the present and created a new future for Trinity Health. Their goal was to preserve Catholic health care; their mission was to ensure that the human right to health care become a social right as part of a national understanding of promoting and providing for the general welfare. Thanks to the work of those prescient and courageous women religious, Trinity Health now is governed by a “mirror board” — a group of persons who carry canonical and civil responsibilities both as sponsors of Catholic Health Ministries and as directors of Trinity Health’s civil board.
There is an ethical issue closely related to philanthropy that also is a core value for many Catholic health care systems and included in the “Shared Statement of Identity for the Catholic Health Care Ministry.”¹ That value is stewardship. Some have suggested that “stewardship is the recurring theme in the Catholic social tradition that speaks most clearly to how and why people should care about the commons.”² Yet, it would actually be difficult to find the term stewardship mentioned at all in the Catholic social tradition.³ And often in the more general literature (and likely in the minds of many in health care), stewardship has been limited to the notion of good financial management.
