CHA offers professional development, community-building program for formation leaders

By JULIE MINDA

For the spirit and culture of the ministry to flourish, the people who make up the ministry must be well-grounded in the tradition and theology of Catholic health care and be able to connect their personal vocation with their organization’s mission. Formation leaders play the essential role in ensuring this grounding is done authentically and effectively, says Diarmuid Rooney, CHA’s vice president of sponsorship and mission services.

To equip and support formation leaders in their crucial work, CHA is offering an indepth professional development program called Formation for Formation Leaders. The course is open to CHA members who lead and facilitate formation programming. Participants must have a graduate degree in theology or spirituality or the equivalent combination of education and experience and they must commit to complete the entire 24-month course, among other criteria.

In addition to sharpening skill sets, the course is designed to foster lasting relationships among peer participants. Course designers hope these connections will strengthen the shared commitment to the unified mission of Catholic health care as a church ministry. The vision is that the network will constitute a “community of practice” capable of creatively leading formation into the future.

“We are better together than we are alone,” says Mary Anne Sladich-Lanz, one of four seasoned formation experts on the program faculty who are intent on passing on their accumulated wisdom to the next generation of formation leaders while also learning from those participants. “We have the ability to learn from each other and to engage this community in a way that will benefit Catholic health care organizations” as well as their leaders, staff and patients, she adds. Sladich-Lanz is a formation consultant for ministry systems including Providence St. Joseph Health.

The CHA program begins in August and concludes in fall 2025. The registration

From page 1 churchwomen through nine service units for young men and six for young women. Its volunteers spend six months to a year in such diverse arenas as Navajo reservations in New Mexico and Arizona; health systems in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Canada; and in rebuilding projects following natural disasters in the U.S. and Canada.

Saint Francis’ involvement began in 2012, when Mennonites living in Hartford who had volunteered at the hospital suggested a permanent, formal relationship. Four men volunteer for six months each, spending two to three days a week at Saint Francis helping in the emergency department and assisting in discharging patients.

“Because they come from small communities, they aren’t used to some of the challenges from injuries, incidents or problems that are common in inner cities,” Liebig says. “They are thrown into a Level 1 trauma center and see a lot of things. But they are very insightful young men and not judgmental.” deadline is June 30. The program includes four in-person and nine virtual sessions over the 24 months. CHA plans to offer the course on an ongoing basis, with up to 50 formation leaders participating in each cohort.

They also unload and organize donations at the Joan C. Dauber Food Pantry on Trinity’s Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Hospital campus in Hartford and occasionally sing hymns a cappella in the main lobby at Saint Francis. They also spend time each week volunteering at Hartford Hospital, where they work in the surgical unit’s family waiting area, and Habitat for Humanity.

The curriculum covers the theological underpinnings of Catholic health care. Faculty will guide participants in exercises to deepen their individual psychological and spiritual development. They will delve into practical elements of designing formation programs for executive, professional and support staff. Course participants will have readings and reflection questions to complete before the live session and postdiscussion forums for the virtual sessions. They also will have projects, practicums and a capstone project. Rooney estimates the time commitment to be about five hours per month, excluding virtual and in-person meetings.

In a 2022 CHA survey, mission lead- ers said formation is the competency that they most wished to improve. Rooney says ministry formation is needed throughout all Catholic health systems and facilities — including for sponsors, board members, executives and other leaders and frontline staff. In systems and facilities where there is no leader with the sole responsibility for formation, it usually falls to the mission leader to shape and present formation programming.

“Ministry formation is the cultural catalyst of Catholic health care and it’s the essence of what keeps us unique and distinct in all of health care,” says Rooney. “If we don’t have enough people properly trained to do formation, the implications are vast.”

In addition to Rooney and Sladich-Lanz, program faculty include Celeste Mueller, ministry formation and leadership con- sultant with Vocare Partners; and Stephen Taluja, chief sponsorship and ministry formation officer for Bon Secours Mercy Health.

Taluja says many seasoned ministry leaders who had developed a proficiency in formation are retiring, so there is some urgency to preparing those who will take on the formation responsibilities.

Mueller says, “we really want to secure the knowledge, wisdom and practices we’ve gained” for future formation leaders.

Mueller believes Formation for Formation Leaders will increase the professionalism and the level of excellence in ministry formation practice.

Rooney says contemporary ministry formation is a nascent but quickly growing discipline in its own right. Taluja adds that universities don’t offer courses in the nuts and bolts of formation programming. In addition to having theological grounding, to be effective, formation leaders must tend to their own spiritual development and have the empathy and skill to guide others in this type of personal discovery.

Formation for Formation Leaders builds upon work CHA and a 13-person committee completed in 2019 to define ministry formation and set out competencies for formation professionals. They wrote CHA’s “Framework for Ministry Formation” booklet and generated other tools for formation programming. The four faculty for Formation for Formation Leaders were on the committee.

CHA’s Ministry Formation Advisory Council continues to inform the development of the resources and content that the framework outlines.

Visit chausa.org/FFL to learn more about the program and register. The fee of $5,500 per participant covers all materials as well as accommodations and meals for the in-person sessions.

jminda@chausa.org researched it in the denomination’s annual financial and activity report, which catalogs all the public service opportunities. Rather than a rebuilding project, Benesh was drawn to Hartford’s “more humanitarian work, which I was more comfortable with and could put my talents to use.” His parents co-owned a small assisted living facility, where he volunteered as a youngster. “I felt like I could draw on that experience and use the tools God has given me.”

“I want to be a light and help where I can,” he says.

Members of the Church of God in Christ,

Liebig emphasizes that regardless of their assignment, they do not preach, proselytize or recruit.

“These young men walk the walk,” Liebig says. “But they do it quietly. They don’t look for pats on the back or accolades. They don’t want a letter from us confirming their hours.”

The foursome lives in a church-owned home in nearby Glastonbury with a Mennonite couple on a one-year volunteer mission as unit parents. Many of these couples also have volunteered at Saint Francis in the gift shop, emergency department, food months bank and as visitors to patients on nursing floors. Since the program’s inception, 82 young men from the U.S., Canada and Brazil have done their service mission at Saint Francis.

Though a volunteer service mission is no longer required in his denomination, Benesh says many men and women continue the tradition of donating months or a year of their young adult lives to service “because we want to give time to the Lord and our country.”

He heard of the Hartford Service Unit program through word of mouth and

He applied in September 2020 but because of COVID, wasn’t chosen by church officials for the assignment until 2022. His favorite days, he says, were spent in the emergency department. “It’s fastpaced, and it’s not easy.” He adds, “The staff in the emergency department really cares about us. And that means a lot.”

By the time he finished his service in February, he says, he received more than he gave and set his course for the future. “Coming out here, praying about it and working and thinking, I feel like I have the tools to start being a nurse,” he says. “This experience has made me think deeply, made me look inside, to see who I really am and what I’m capable of.”

As soon as Benesh departed, another young man arrived to fill his slot and continue the shared mission. “Their service enhances their spiritual lives and what this hospital system stands for,” Liebig says. “Our missions have matched up very well.”

From page 1 capacity as secretary general of the International Catholic Migration Commission. Based in Geneva, the commission brings together a worldwide network of Catholic bishop conferences and Catholic-inspired organizations working on migration and refugee issues. Msgr. Vitillo also leads Catholic Response for Ukraine Working Group. Kostko is a management consultant for that group. Compton is CHA’s senior director of global health.

The three began their journey March 1 in Warsaw, Poland, where they met with representatives of Catholic Relief Services and the Polish Rescue Organization to learn how those organizations are responding to the urgent needs of the Ukrainian people.

The trio also met with Polish officials. According to the United Nations, 1.58 million Ukrainians are registered for temporary protection in Poland. Msgr. Vitillo said at various periods since February 2022, upwards of 5 million Ukrainians, mostly women and children, have sought refuge there.

Crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border, the delegation traveled to Lviv in Western Ukraine. Representatives of the Sovereign Order of Malta and that Catholic lay group’s charitable arm talked to the delegation about the relief the organization has delivered or funded in Ukraine throughout the war, including food, beds, generators, medical equipment and services, psychological health care and social work. Much of the supplies come from Europe and from North America.

The delegation visited a state-run orphanage in Lviv as well as a foster home taking in displaced children who receive volunteer and professional support through St. Nicholas House of Mercy. St. Nicho- las and other House of Mercy facilities are diocesan- and parish-affiliated centers that offer social and mental health services.

Recounting aspects of the trip with ministry peers during a special March 30 CHA global health networking call, Compton said that everywhere the delegation traveled, there was evidence of destruction — annihilated buildings, bombed out cars, shrapnel, walls pocked with bullet holes, fresh graves in rapidly expanding cemeteries.

But Compton said he was struck by the nation’s resilience: people busily going about their daily tasks mere minutes after civil defense sirens had gone quiet, children at the orphanage who sang and danced just steps away from the entrance to the facility’s bomb shelter.

During an interview for the CHA podcast

“Health Calls,” Compton said the Catholic Church’s relief efforts in Ukraine are largely focused on directing resources through existing church ministries to build local capacity — an approach CHA endorses.

Msgr. Vitillo emphasized the value of this approach in a video about the series of visits he has made to Ukraine. He said that during crises, the church responds in a way that goes beyond meeting pressing material and physical needs. He said the church often already has a presence in communities hit by disaster and “it will stay during the crisis … and then it will be there afterwards, too. It’s accompanying the people.”

Msgr. Vitillo’s organization, the International Catholic Migration Commission, is providing financial and technical support to Ukrainian parishes to bolster their capacity to deliver spiritual care, mental health care, and child protective services. The commission is funding trauma care and mental health training for seminarians in formation programs associated with both Greek and Roman Catholic Churches in every part of the country.

The delegation spent time at Sheptytsky Hospital, which is preparing to equip patients with prosthetics and provide them with rehabilitation services. Msgr. Vitillo has appealed to Catholic health systems in the U.S. to provide prosthetics and other resources to Ukrainian amputees. The country is rife with minefields.

During his networking call, Compton noted that the work going on in Lviv illustrates the value of providing resources to build up local capacity rather than bringing in outside practitioners to direct and deliver emergency relief services.

Faulty assumptions for purchase in Ukraine or in bordering countries. The Catholic Medical Mission Board and Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach are providing some of these supplies, and the Knights of Columbus is paying shipping and handling costs to get them to Ukraine. The container with goods valued at nearly $1 million was to be shipped to Ukraine in late April.

Christ the King parish in Khmelnytskyi also is using money from the International Catholic Migration Commission to increase the number of and provide training to mental health professionals, so they can tend to the psychosocial needs of parishioners.

Compton shared with participants in the networking call that it felt surreal to tour a military museum in the basement of the Christ the King church. Some artifacts of the bloody modern conflict over Ukrainian sovereignty date back over a decade. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

The church gives Ukrainian troops heading to the battlefield prayer books, rosaries and small pins that have religious significance to the troops and to the people in the parish. Parishioners from the Khmelnytskyi church collect basic supplies that they periodically deliver to troops on the frontlines.

The delegation’s time in Kyiv coincided with a Russian drone and heavy missile offensive targeting infrastructure in major cities. Air raid sirens sounded their first morning in the city.

When the shelling stopped, the group visited memorials to fallen soldiers. In towns on the outskirts of Kyiv, they met with locals who shared their experiences and losses. One woman tended a flower garden on property that her husband’s family had owned for generations. All three houses on the property had been destroyed by bombs and resulting fires. Most of her family members had fled Ukraine, but the woman and her husband remained, living with neighbors and holding out hope for rebuilding.

The delegation visited Bucha and Irpin, cities that had been under siege and occupied by Russian forces before being retaken by Ukrainian troops in March 2022. In that area, the three delegation members viewed the site of a mass grave containing the victims of the earliest attacks on these towns, which were less than 10 kilometers from the capital city of Kyiv.

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The delegation made stops in three other communities in Western Ukraine — Zolochiv, Chortkiv and Ternopil. They toured a center for children and adults with Down syndrome and for survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence. They also visited a House of Mercy and a foster home for displaced children. They met a pastor/farmer in a rural parish who has been selling produce, honey and candles to generate funds for Catholic Church ministries that serve disabled people in the area.

The group spoke with clinicians and seriously wounded soldiers at a hospital in Ternopil. Compton said during the networking call that he had been surprised to see the advanced medical technology in use at the hospital.

Compton underscored that while wellmeaning health care facilities may think they are helping by donating outdated medical equipment to facilities overseas, it is always best to learn directly from intended recipients what is needed. Money is almost always preferrable to used equipment, according to Compton, especially if replacement parts will prove hard to come by.

The delegation learned about medicine and medical equipment that is unavailable

The woman who brought them there also showed them a small building where she and neighbors had holed up during shellings, tank fighting and rifle fire. The military action occurred over two weeks’ time. Compton said the delegation learned that when the civilians were hunkered down, each time a small contingent of the civilians would run from the building to a well to get water, Russian snipers would shoot at them, and this resulted in casualties.

At their last stop, in Kosiv, the delegation observed weekend retreats for veterans and their spouses who are processing the emotional, mental and spiritual fallout of the war. The International Catholic Migration Commission is financially supporting the retreats, which are run by the Knights of Columbus.

Light in the darkness

Compton called his time in Ukraine a “life-changing experience. It was devastating and yet encouraging. It was hopeful in so many ways, but also awful, to see the reality of what has happened in Ukraine and is continuing to happen.” jminda@chausa.org

But, he said, “We saw the church in action. We saw the beauty of the people, the amazing humanity” of their response to the countless needs all around them.

Information on how Catholic organizations are responding to Ukrainian people’s needs, a link to Compton’s “Health Calls” podcast, information on recommended ways to support the people of Ukraine and other details are available at chausa.org/ global-health/Ukraine.