History of the Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry
A New Frontier of the Dominican Order Launched in New York City
The Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry ~ Saint Catherine of Siena Church and Priory
Several years in the making and building on the Friars 800 year tradition in the Catholic moral tradition and following more than seven decades of service in the hospital chaplaincy, a new vision for the health care ministry will be formally inaugurated on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 with the first in a series of lectures by the internationally acclaimed physician and ethicist, Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D. Currently, Pellegrino serves as the Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics and is Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington. Author of twenty books, nearly six hundred publications and the recipient of forty-four honorary doctoral degrees, Dr. Pellegrino will speak on one of the most pressing issues in health care today “The Erosion of Human Dignity and the Dehumanization of Medicine.” It is fitting that this inaugural lecture be presented by a physician and ethicist who has devoted his life’s work to promoting and defending human dignity and human freedom - the first principle of the Catholic moral tradition in health care.
Deemed one of the primary frontier centers in the world by the Dominican Order, the mission of the health care ministry of the Dominican Friars of St. Catherine of Siena Church and Priory in New York is to promote the dignity of the human person and the healing ministry of Jesus Christ among parishioners, health care professionals, patients, and their families through pastoral care, education, research, and ethics consultations in the Hospital for Special Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Rockefeller University Hospital. The Mission is fulfilled through four critical and inter-related ministries or pillars, Church of St. Catherine of Siena; the Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus; pastoral care to health care professionals, support staff, patients and their families; and health care ethics programs and consultations.
The Friars have expanded their ministry by providing services to help clinicians, patients and families come to a greater understanding of the Catholic moral tradition and the teaching of Church on a myriad of ethical issues, for example, beginning and end-of-life questions, nutrition and hydration, informed consent, genetic medicine, embryonic stem cell research, ordinary versus extraordinary treatment, organ donation and transplantation, withdrawal of treatment, and caring for persons in persistent vegetative states. The enormously rich Thomistic Tradition, as part of the Dominican Order’s contribution to the new frontier in health care ethics, strategically positions the Friars to influence ethical decisions, health care services and inform public policies today by providing services and programs to help others come to a greater understanding of the relationship between protecting and defending the dignity of the human person and ethical decisions in health care which are critical in the field of health care services today.
The Dominican Friars have been serving at St. Catherine of Siena Church 1897. The health care facilities identified in the mission statement were established within the parish in the 1930’s. These health care facilities have evolved into some of the most highly-regarded centers for care, treatment, research and graduate medical education in the world today. As the largest non-profit medical center campus in the world, these hospitals serve more than a million patients each year and employ many thousands of clinicians and support staff. Throughout these decades the Dominican Friars of St. Catherine of Siena Church and Priory have been in the midst of it all ~ serving parishioners, patients, families, and clinicians through countless crisis situations ~ bringing the healing ministry of Jesus Christ to all those in search of healing and hope.