‘Time is right’ for Catholic hospital and medical school project in Michigan, bishop says

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Oct 16, 2024 / 06:00 am

A celebration of two beloved saints recently served to highlight an initiative to found an authentically Catholic hospital and medical school in the Midwest. 

Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, Michigan, celebrated a Mass at Holy Spirit Parish in nearby Brighton, Michigan, on Oct. 5 in honor of St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) and St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast days fell just days before. 

Boyea told a capacity crowd at dinner after Mass that the time is right for an authentically Catholic hospital in his diocese, which encompasses the state capital and much of southern Michigan. He said it will reflect the legacy of Padre Pio, who founded his Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (Home for the Relief of Suffering) in Italy in the 1950s, and which was intended to be the first of many hospitals.

Earlier this year, nonprofit Catholic Healthcare International (CHI) signed a purchase agreement with Trinity Health, a national Catholic medical system, to buy a 140,000-square-foot hospital in Howell, Michigan, a rural small town. CHI Founder Jere Palazzolo told CNA the development comes as the culture of death increasingly endangers human life. The project’s episcopal advisers are Cardinal Raymond Burke and Boyea. Financing and donors are still being sought to complete the purchase.

In 1956, beloved Padre Pio of Pietrelcina founded a respected major research medical center now administered by the Vatican. The saint described it as “a place of prayer and science” and “a healing place where patients, doctors, and priests will serve as reserves of love.” No other such Casas have been created. 

Father Timothy Nelson, a CHI board member and cardiologist, told CNA: “I’m convinced that the project is of God. It is needed in a cultural climate where Catholics and Catholic medical care are being challenged.”

Palazzolo said CHI will complement services offered by Trinity, allowing CHI to “focus on our mission to provide a real continuum of care from conception to natural death.” 

When completed, the project is slated to house a medical school, embryo orphanage, outpatient and rehabilitative services, birthing unit, family medicine practice, and the Terri Schiavo Home for the Brain Injured.

“The medical center will serve as a place of hope and healing for students, patients, their families, and the entire community,” Palazzolo said. It aims to become operational in 2026.

Back in 2009, CHI signed an agreement with the Casa in Italy to recreate the facility in the U.S. Burke has also emphasized the need for a truly faithful Catholic medical school to train physicians who value life and the dignity of human life, created in the image and likeness of God. As part of the project, CHI is seeking accreditation for a school of osteopathic medicine.

Dr. George Mychaskiw, the president of the proposed medical school who has founded medical schools elsewhere in the U.S., explained to CNA that some Catholic hospitals have fallen short of the culture of life espoused by the Church.

Echoing Burke, he said: “This medical school will provide the equivalent of a master’s in bioethics and armor physicians with the faith and truth to stand with their patients, protecting the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable.” 

He observed that the current euphemisms of “‘reproductive health care,’ ‘ending suffering,’ and ‘no one would want to live like that’” so common in secular systems today are reminiscent of Nazi Germany. 

A veteran medical administrator, Palazzolo said abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, euthanasia, and so-called “gender-affirming care” involving cross-sex hormones and surgical mutilation of secondary sexual characteristics will not be tolerated.

“We will emphasize the care of the unborn consistent with the teachings of the Catholic faith,” he said. 

To underscore its foundation in prayer and faith, CHI has also developed the Worldwide Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Program. This unites adorers around the world in their intentions and in support of the mission of the Home for the Relief of Suffering in Italy and Michigan.

The forthcoming hospital in Michigan comes as Do No Harm, a secular advocacy group focused on combating transgenderism, released its stoptheharmdatabase.com website detailing transgender surgeries and interventions carried out on minors, including in ostensibly Catholic hospitals. 

“In a lot of Catholic systems, there is very little difference between them and secular systems,” Palazzolo said, adding: “St. John Paul II was so strong in saying how Catholic systems should be operated and shouldn’t get into joint ventures and alliances with non-Catholic systems.”

With changes in reimbursement and government regulations, it became increasingly difficult for Catholic systems to stand firm, he said.

“Because it limited some of their business opportunities, many systems forfeited their Catholic identity or ignored the Church. This is across the country. There are few truly Catholic systems in our country,” he explained.

The need for truly Catholic health care systems, Palazzolo pointed out, has also become more acute following the sale of hospitals owned by Ascension Healthcare to secular systems in Michigan and Illinois.

At the event, CNA also interviewed Anglican priest Calvin Robinson, a CHI board member who was in attendance. 

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Robinson recently relocated from England to Michigan where he pastors an Anglican parish in Grand Rapids. He became especially well known after a 2023 Oxford Union debate in which he vigorously defended the institution of holy matrimony. 

He told CNA that his role in the project is to promote medical education grounded in Catholic teaching: “We are founding the medical school so that Catholic health care professionals are trained, particularly when it comes to abortion, IVF, end-of-life care, and euthanasia.” 

“What we find is that many medical professionals end up becoming worldly and so they are pressured or incentivized to participate in things that any Catholic should object to. We want to train professionals so that they can say, ‘I’m a Catholic. I can’t do this,’” Robinson said. 

“I have been visiting the U.S. about once a month for the last two years and I am encouraged after being here. People are openly proclaiming the name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. People still believe in Christ and in freedom. But that can’t be said for the United Kingdom and most of Europe at this point,” he said.

At the event, Robinson also deplored the erosion of civil rights in the U.K. “If you give in to the woke mob, you have no legs to stand on,” he said.

“Either you stand for something or you do not stand at all,” he said and related that he has relocated to the U.S. out of fear of persecution. He received a standing ovation from attendees at the event.