I I The Message -- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana August 30, 1996
Residences provide religious services to elderly, ailing
By BILL PRITCHARD
Catholic News Service
ing in the community.
St• John of God Retirement
and Care Center in Los Angeles,
owned and operated by the an-
cient Catholic order, the Hospi-
taller Order of St. John of God,
also provides a variety of services
for residents, of whom about 70
percent are Catholic.
The center includes housing
for those who are able Co live in-
dependently and residents who
require long-term skilled care.
Although the center is "right
in the heart of downtown,"
Brother Gabriel Monarch, a staff
member of the center and a
member of the order, said the
property, with its gardens and
areas to walk, "is very conducive
to meditation" for the residents
who are able to get out and
around.
Daily Mass is available to the
Catholic residents and an ecu-
menical service is held once
every two weeks, he said.
"For those who are unable to
attend Mass we have Commu-
nion rounds," Brother Monarch
said.
Residents have also taken ac-
tive roles in various ministries,
he said. One man was a perma-
nent deacon until his death, and
some of the women residents are
lectors.
The brother said the pastoral
work could be considered to ex-
tend to the health and other
types of care that any resident of
a home for the aged might ex-
pect.
"If you have good care, it's al-
Life in the family home might
end for a person who has become
too old or infirm to live alone.
But, as many residents in re-
tirement and long-term care
homes have discovered, faith life
goes on and can flourish.
Many residences for the el-
derly and infirm provide for reli-
gious services and pastoral care
for residents• The larger ones
have chaplains on the staff. Oth-
ers make arrangements with
Catholic priests, Protestant min-
isters, rabbis and Muslim clerics
to provide care, counseling and
prayer for their residents on a
regular basis.
In Ellicott City, Md., a resident
of the Heartlands retirement
community said the atmosphere
among the people living there,
who average about 80 years of
age, is ecumenical.
"The emphasis here is inter-
faith," said Dr. Kenneth Hor-
vath, a Catholic who has lived at
the community for eight years.
"We had a focus group" and
the community's owner asked
what kind of services people
wanted, Horvath said. "We all
said interfaith," he said, adding,
"we wanted a chapel here" and
"wanted it to be ecumenical."
"It has been done and we have
kept that spirit here," he said.
The Heartlands has Catholic,
Jewish and Protestant residents,
with Catholics making up about
60 percent of the 185 people liv-
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most like a healing balm," he
said.
At the New York Archdiocese's
Terence Cardinal Cooke Health
Care Center, Sister Joan Gannon
provides a unique kind of pas-
toral ministry.
She calls herself a "general
use" type of staffer and her par-
ticular focus is on those who have
no faith or who are "finding God
in other ways" than through tra-
ditional organized religion.
"Because people know I'm a
sister, they will bring up the re-
ligious element-to me," "she said.
"Most people have a very real re-
lationship with God" even if they
may be "turned off by organized
religion," she added.
"I see my role as being a lover,
basically," of the people in the fa-
cility, particularly those in the
AIDS unit where she does most
of her work, she said.
There are nearly 400 residents
of the facility. Many of them are
aged, but there are a large num-
ber who are younger and in the
center for serious ailments.
Sister Gannon said she is
"very bold about talking about
God" with residents she knows•
But she said she is less forward
with those she's not familiar
with, to avoid putting them off
by appearing to have a particu-
lar religious agenda to push.
"I've gone through many soul-
searching moments," she said,
wondering "am I really giving
them what I'm supposed to be
giving them."
Daily Mass is offered every
morning and, after the Sunday
liturgy, there is a Protestant ser-
vice. Every other Friday, a Jew-
ish Sabbath service is held at the
facility•
The staff includes a full-time
Catholic chaplain and a full-time
Baptist minister who provides
past'oral service to the facility's
large African-American popula-
tion. A rabbi visits Jewish resi-
dents during the week and a
Muslim imam at a nearby
mosque has arranged for a mem-
ber of his congregation to visit
the dozen or so Muslim resi-
dents.
One of the most important
things for residents is feeling
they are not abandoned, Sister
Gann0n said.
"I think they mostly just want
to be paid attention to," she said,
and to believe "that they're valu"
able human beings."
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