Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Parishes can play a vital role during end-of-life care, hospice rep says
Parishes can play a vital role during end-of-life care, hospice rep says
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published December 19, 2008
Detroit — A Catholic parish is a community that focuses its membership on a new life in Christ — but it can also help its members in very tangible ways at the end of their lives on earth.
This was the message dozens of pastors and lay ministers received at Our Lady of Loretto Church in Redford Township, as they gathered Nov. 15 to learn about hospice care. Hospice involves physical, emotional and spiritual care for those who are in the process of dying. It has been lauded by Church leaders as a way to maintain the dignity of life at the end of life.
Some Catholic leaders are trying to bring education about hospice care to their parishioners — a task that several hospices are willing to help with.
“We need our partners in our spiritual and religious community to help us reach people in need,” said Marge Wisniewski, an administrator at Heartland Hospice in Southfield, and also a member of St. Gregory the Great Parish in Detroit. “We can help (patients) heal their physical pain, but the process is also to heal their spiritual and psychic pain. The Church network is so much more valuable than any other medium, because where do people go when they’re in need? To their church.”
Throughout metro Detroit, several Catholic ministers involve themselves as chaplains at various hospice organizations, and the Felician Sisters have run Angela Hospice in Livonia since they founded it in 1985.
But some pastors want to spread the word about hospice care to people in their own parish’s pews with informational sessions and resources.
Fr. Richard Leliaert, pastor of St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in Redford Township, is one of them.
“Hospice is a more hospitable way to work with the dying process instead of fighting against it,” said Fr. Leliaert, who had spent about 20 years in hospital chaplaincy mostly at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac. “It enables family, loved ones and friends to be with the dying person … to be more alert and more present to them.
“I think hospice is not only a wonderful alternative, but it’s in the best of our Catholic Christian tradition,” he added. “It’s a real way of preparing to say goodbye, and to begin what I call the wonderful next step into the kingdom of God.”
Representatives from both Heartland and Angela hospice say they provide informational services to congregations who want to learn more about what hospice is all about. Angela hospice also has volunteers write columns in Catholic church bulletins to educate their fellow parishioners about their ministry.
Wisniewski said there’s much education to be done.
“People know hospice exists, and they know that it’s wonderful — but they really know little about the nuts and bolts of it,” she said. “They don’t know how you get it, how you pay for it. They don’t know there’s different hospice organizations and providers, and that they often have very different approaches to it.”
It’s ideal to teach people about hospice within a parish setting, she added, because some of the biggest issues hospice patients have involve their relationships with God.
“People are just afraid of dying,” she said. “And when they’re afraid of dying, that’s when all the spiritual issues come up, and faith can play such a huge role in helping people overcome that obstacle.”
Learn more about Heartland Hospice at www.heartlandhospice.com or by calling (248) 948-1019. Learn more about Angela Hospice at www.angelahospice.org, or by calling (734) 464-7810.
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