By Joyce Coronel | Nov. 4, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

More than 150 doctors and health care professionals packed the chapel at the Diocesan Pastoral Center Oct. 16 to celebrate the annual White Mass and ask the intercession of St. Luke, patron saint of physicians.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted concelebrated the Mass with 14 priests from the Diocese of Phoenix and Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who delivered the homily.

“Hopefully you can see your lives as physicians as preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Chaput told the crowd, urging them to be evangelists as they encounter their patients.

Reflecting on a reading from St. Paul, who had complained that many of his followers had become “enamored of the world” and abandoned him, Archbishop Chaput drew a comparison to the challenges doctors face today.

“That’s the problem of the Church today: we try so hard to fit in… what we fit into isn’t the Gospel, isn’t the new life given to us by Jesus Christ,” he said. “Sometimes being faithful to the Lord is a lonely thing. When you stand for the truth, sometimes it means standing alone.”

Following Communion, the doctors in the crowd rose to recite a prayer composed for Catholic physicians. They prayed that God would provide them with the gift of knowing how to imitate Him every day “as medical doctors not only of the body, but of the whole person.”

Deacon Al Scheller, attired in royal blue scrubs, is one of three physicians who are also deacons in the Phoenix Diocese. He said he’s been attending the White Mass for eight years and had never seen such a large turnout, which he attributed to current political developments.

“Our problems in D.C. are bringing them out,” Scheller said.

Following the Mass, the crowd headed to the Phoenix Country Club to enjoy dinner and a keynote address by Archbishop Chaput.

Speaking to them about the high rate of abortion for women who are carrying Down Syndrome babies, he told the group that while some see in these children imperfection and inconvenience, “others see in them an invitation to be healed of their own sins and failures by learning how to love.” 

The Phoenix Catholic Physicians Guild presented Archbishop Chaput with the Evangelium Vitae award for his work on behalf of human life. Bishop Olmsted received the same award in 2005.

An inscription on the award, a framed icon of the Holy Family, reads, “For living and preaching that the Gospel of God’s love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person and the Gospel of life are a single and indivisible Gospel.”