Catholic Health World
| February 15, 2010 |
Volume 26, Number 3 |
Fr. Joseph Kukura, 69, was bioethics expert, health care advocate
Fr. Joseph Kukura, president of the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, died Feb. 1. The cause was cancer. He was a bioethics expert and an advocate for Catholic health care and for the underserved.
A native of New Jersey, he was educated at Seton Hall University of South Orange, N.J., and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He served in several parishes in the U.S. before earning his doctorate from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
After serving on the faculty of Immaculate Conception Seminary in New Jersey, he joined the Health Corporation of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J. In 1987, he joined CHA as senior associate of mission. He assumed progressive responsibilities at the association until his departure in the late 1990s to establish and head the Catholic HealthCare Partnership.
That organization is a coalition of Catholic health care systems and facilities operating in New Jersey. It advocates on legislative and regulatory matters, provides leadership development and education to its members and promotes justice on behalf of underserved people.
While Fr. Kukura's focus had been on health care in New Jersey, he also served as a resource on moral theology and bioethics issues on a national level.
Sr. Mary Corrigan, SC, is vice president of mission effectiveness for Trinitas Regional Medical Center of Elizabeth, N.J., one of the facilities that make up the Catholic HealthCare Partnership. She said, "Fr. Joe possessed the gifts of deep spirituality, intellectual competence, personal humility and genuine pastoral sensitivity, as well as the unique ability to bring all of these gifts to bear in his ministry and his personal relationships."
Those wishing to honor Fr. Kukura may contribute a donation to:
The Kukura Family Seminarian Scholarship Fund, Immaculate Conception Seminary, 400 South Orange Ave., South Orange, N.J., 07079.
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