Doctors' Rx: Be Catholic

By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic

MIAMI| University of Miami medical student Aaron Patzwahl promises to stick to his Catholic values in his future medical practice.

“Today’s culture challenges your faith,” said Patzwahl, one of several medical professionals and students who attended the inaugural White Mass of the Miami Guild of the Catholic Medical Association. The Mass was celebrated Oct. 12 at St. Mary Cathedral.

The name White Mass recalls the smocks traditionally worn by doctors and nurses, said Archbishop Thomas Wenski, main celebrant of the Mass. St. Luke, whose feast day is Oct. 18, is the patron saint of doctors. The archbishop called the healing professions “a beautiful gift,” in spite of the very real challenges which Catholic medical professionals face today.

“Catholic doctors who refuse to go along with the prevailing culture are being called to witness to their faith within their profession in the face of ridicule, the loss of professional advancement and increasing limitations on their freedom to serve in accordance with their consciences,” said the archbishop.

Father Scott Francis Binet, 50, a medical doctor and the guild’s president, called its establishment a hallmark event in the Archdiocese of Miami. Father Binet came up with the idea of a chapter in Miami, discussed it with other Catholic doctors and then presented it to the archbishop.

“This is a place for Catholic medical professionals and students to gather together, support each other and help the community. Another goal is to possibly go on mission trips,” said Father Binet, a family practitioner at Miami Rescue Mission who has served the poor and those struck by disasters worldwide.

Although Catholic guilds exist in northwest Florida, north central Florida, Orlando and Palm Beach, Miami until now did not have its own guild.

“We applied to the National Catholic Medical Association which gave us a charter,” said Father Alfred Cioffi, the guild’s chaplain. Father Cioffi teaches bioethics at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens and has degrees in moral theology and genetics.

The guild currently has about 25 members and is hoping to grow in numbers.

The medical profession runs in Victoria Faucheux’s family. She is a registered nurse who is studying at South University in West Palm Beach to become a nurse practitioner. Her husband, Jason Faucheux, a Nova Southeastern University medical student, came to the Mass with her, as did Victoria’s mother, a doctor in New Orleans.

Victoria Faucheux represents those in the guild’s allied medical professions. She says that part of the problem with today’s health care system is that there are not enough medical professionals.

“The world needs more people to enter the profession,” she said. "Especially, those going into family practice, even though certain specialties pay much more money.”

Archbishop Wenski had addressed the Catholic Medical Association in Orlando Sept. 20, at the conclusion of their annual convention.

In that talk, he quoted both St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who cautioned that “a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.”

He noted that these same sentiments are echoed by Pope Francis when he condemns a culture that would “exclude and throw away the weakest and poorest among us.”

For more information contact [email protected].