By: BRIAN P. SMITH, MS, MA, M.DIV.
I have a confession to make: I was a mission leader for seven years before I had a good understanding of what sponsorship in Catholic health care is all about. I used to be embarrassed by it, until I discovered that many other senior leaders and middle managers also have no idea what sponsorship is. Many leaders are not able to tell you the names of the individuals who make up their sponsoring board or PJP. And the term PJP — public juridic person — is understood by even fewer leaders within Catholic health care. Unfortunately, for many leaders and front-line associates, sponsorship and the individuals who make up our sponsoring boards are shrouded in mystery. One of the goals of this Health Progress issue is to pull back the curtain and begin to demystify sponsorship. This article will show the relationship and connections between sponsorship, governance and mission integration.
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By: CHRIS LOWNEY
I had not heard the concept of ministerial sponsorship before joining the board of Catholic Health Initiatives. At first, it struck me as arcane jargon that was relevant only in the niche of Catholic health care.
Well, the language surrounding sponsorship remains a bit arcane, truth be told. But I now regard the core concept as relevant to a broader niche than Catholic health care. How broad? How about across all Catholic ministries, and how about all around the globe? What's more, the concept can help engender the spirit of "co-responsibility" that we will need to thrive as a 21st-century church.
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By: SR. KELLY CONNORS, PM, JCD, PhD.
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.
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By: ZENI FOX, PhD
"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. These individual expressions sometimes become part of religious traditions, spiritual classics handed on from generation to generation.
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By: MELANIE C. DREHER, RN, h.D AND SR. LINDA WERTHMAN, RSM, PhD
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.
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By: FR. JOHN M. FONTANA, OSM
They're all over the place today — Star Wars characters, superheroes, pirates, Minnie Mouse, witches, Minions from "Despicable Me" and, of course, nurses dressed as they usually are in your health care institutions, in white fishnet and 6-inch heels!
And after collecting all their treats, the little ones will come home, take off their masks and reveal — beneath them — their fresh and (usually) innocent faces, filled with laughter, awe, food, trust and dependence on others. After all, they're children, and children of God. And that's how they'll wake up tomorrow, on the solemn feast of All Saints.
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