Catholic health care professionals come together for faithful support

By Bethany Noble, The Catholic Sun
April 5, 2007

Some practices considered sinful by the Catholic Church are widely accepted by the health care community.

As a result, Catholic health care professionals can be left feeling isolated in their beliefs and torn between their work and their faith.

The Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix, a local organization of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, medical students and other health care professionals, has been successful in helping Catholics support each other while living their faith though their work.

“It is sometimes very hard to uphold the principals of the Catholic faith in the practice of medicine,” said Dr. Marci Moffitt, regional director, at a March 27 meeting at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish. “It is important that we support each other in doing that.”

Moffitt is no stranger to the conflict that can arise between Catholic teaching and modern medicine. She recently left a position when her employer became involved in funding abortions.

The Catholic Physicians Guild, which meets on a monthly basis, is a part of a national organization under the Catholic Medical Association. Its mission is to help health care professionals grow in their understanding of the moral and ethical principals of the Catholic faith. According to Moffitt, the group comes together for faith, fellowship, formation and food.

“We call it the four F’s,” she smiled.

The meetings begin with Mass followed by dinner and a discussion with a scheduled speaker.

“In the past we have talked about issues ranging from prayer to the abortion-vaccine link,” Moffitt said. “At one meeting our interim chaplain, Fr. John Becker, gave a talk on his pro-life novels.”

At the recent meeting, Timothy Herrman, Ph.D., of Ave Maria University, spoke on the centrality of prayer and how easy it can be to get distracted from the eternal goal.

“It doesn’t matter if you are bustling around the ER or sitting in an adoration chapel,” he said. “Distractions can happen if we allow them.”

Upcoming meeting topics include stem-cell research and in vitro fertilization as well as the Theology of the Body. In the fall, the Fr. John Ehrich, the guild’s chaplain, will host a series of discussions on bioethics.

Moffitt hopes to see the community grow and encourages Catholics in the medical field to attend the meetings.

“We are all looking for support and we want to learn what to say and how to say it,” she said. “Here we learn how someone else handled a situation. We are all supposed to witness to the truth and, with God’s grace, we can do it in our work, no matter how hard it may seem.”

Consuela Grant, a nursing student and nurses assistant at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, is thankful for the opportunity to be part of the Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix.

“I think it is important as a Catholic to have that solidarity with other Catholics in the profession,” she said. “Our faith is webbed into our life. It is my faith that led me to want to be a nurse.”

For more information on the Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix, call (602) 799-9629.