
From left, Lucas Swanepoel, Robert Vega, Kathy Curran and Paulo Pontemayor lead a workshop on public policy related to health care at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering. Swanepoel, Curran and Pontemayor are part of CHA's advocacy staff. Vega
directs public policy at the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
A breakout session at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering on how community health needs assessments can help social service agencies and health care providers work together to address gaps in services brought together Nancy Zuech Lim, director of community
health improvement at CHA, and Ben Wortham, vice president for behavioral health integration at Catholic Charities USA.
Lim
Lim discussed the process Catholic and other nonprofit hospitals are required by federal regulations to conduct every three years to assess community health needs. She said the assessments can be a means for parishes to offer input to Catholic hospitals
about unmet needs. She added that the findings of the assessments can provide data that might be useful to parishes in establishing or rethinking their own social service programs.
Wortham shared hopeful early findings from the Healthy Housing Initiative,
a five-year project launched in January 2020. The initiative is focused on reducing chronic homeless and providing wraparound health services in five U.S. cities. Wortham had led the initiative on behalf of Catholic Charities. The partners in the
initiative are CHA members Ascension in Detroit; Providence St. Joseph Health in Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon; Mercy and SSM Health in St. Louis; and CommonSpirit Health in Las Vegas.
Wortham
The project has led to the housing of almost 600 people who had been chronically homeless, which is to say without shelter for a year or more. Wortham said there are 900 more units in the pipeline created by the initiative.
Catholic Charities has hired Delaware State University to evaluate the initiative. Wortham said early findings show that the residents of the housing projects are making far fewer visits to emergency rooms and spending far fewer days hospitalized as compared
to when they were unsheltered.
"And it's trending in the same direction with the amount of money saved," Wortham noted.
He said that it might not seem wise for hospitals to partner in an initiative that stands to reduce their revenue from patient care. "It's maybe counterintuitive businesswise, but what it is, is intuitive missionwise," he said.
Session brings call for nationwide pilgrimages to celebrate creation
In a session called "Pilgrims of Hope in the Climate Crisis," several speakers discussed the challenges of answering the call to action to protect creation made
by Pope Francis in Laudato Si and achieving a sustainable future.
Anna Johnson, North America senior programs manager at Laudato Si Movement, said the priorities of her nonprofit and other environment groups include phasing out fossil fuels, moving to renewable sources of energy, reducing consumerism and food waste
and stopping deforestation.
Johnson noted that this is not only the 10-year anniversary of Laudato Si but also the 800th anniversary of St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures expressing his deep connection to the natural world as well as a Jubilee
year for the Catholic Church. "It is this profound moment where it feels like the spirit is descending upon us and coming and calling us to move," she said.
The speakers at the session encouraged parishes and other Catholic communities nationwide to plan "Pilgrimages of Hope" from Sept. 1 – Oct. 4, when the Jubilee events are to focus on creation. The hope is that individual groups will plan prayerful
outdoor excursions to celebrate nature.
Advocates outline efforts to advance human dignity in health care policy
Kathy Curran, senior director of public policy at CHA, Paulo Pontemayor, senior director of government relations at CHA, and Robert Vega, director of public
policy at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the USCCB, led a workshop that outlined advocacy efforts to advance human dignity through policies that improve access to health care.
Curran discussed CHA's support for legislation that expands care and resources for expectant and postpartum mothers and babies and that addresses the needs of families. "It is a matter of health equity," she said. "Moms have disparate access to the care
that they need to keep themselves healthy and make sure their children and their families are healthy."
Pontemayor reviewed CHA's ongoing commitment to sustaining and expanding Medicaid coverage. He noted that the insurance program covers 81 million Americans. "No other program in existence, currently run by the federal government, takes care of lives from
birth to old age," he said.
Pontemayor mentioned policy changes under discussion that could potentially undercut Medicaid, such as work requirements for enrollees.
Both Curran and Pontemayor pointed to the educational resources related to Medicaid that CHA has made available as part of its Medicaid Makes It Possible campaign.
Vega discussed the Catholic Church's support for palliative care — calling it "a concrete sign of closeness with our brothers and sisters who are suffering" — and for legislation that funds related education and training.

Joe Lepore, CHA government relations associate, discusses the work of the Catholic health care ministry with a college student who stopped by the association's table in the exhibit hall of the gathering.
Advocate for disabled urges 'communal' approach by parishes
Leo Zanchettin, board chair of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, urged in
a session that instead of taking the approach of just being inclusive or supportive of members who have disabilities, parishes instead should pursue the higher goal of being communal. "Communal means recognize that those who've been on the margins
are our equals, members of the same family," he said. "They're meant to be with us and have just as much of a place at the table as everyone else."
Zanchettin discussed his experience as the father of six children who are all on the autism spectrum. His offspring are both brilliant and weird, he said, and no less a part of the Catholic family than anyone else.
He said churches that fail to give full access to parish life to members with physical or mental challenges are unjust to those parishioners and falling short in their ministry. "It is not the full church that God intended it to be, because some are excluded,
some are judged unworthy," he said. "The contribution of that ignored member is missing, and it makes the church less strong, less beautiful, less complete, less of what God wants us to do."
» Tenor was hopeful, but challenges acknowledged at social ministry gathering