By Colin Joyce
Edited by Abigail Nobel

As a Christian pre-med student at Hillsdale College, I am looking forward to the new hospital planned in Howell, Michigan. Catholic Healthcare International (CHI) recently purchased the Ascension Health campus in this small Livingston County town between Lansing and Detroit.

Significance of the Howell Reception

On October 4, I met several CHI planners at the public reception they hosted for nearly 300 people.

Bishop Boyea of Lansing officiated at the outdoor service, followed by talks from members of the CHI board. The National Catholic Register reported on the event.

According to CHI President Jere Palazzolo, the organization plans to build ‘the most Catholic Medical School in America.’ In addition, they will replicate St. Padre Pio’s Home for the Relief of Suffering, a faithful research hospital in Italy.

To Catholics, ‘faithful’ means actively living out traditional doctrines of justice, charity, and the whole human person. Conversely, the faithful resist post-modern concepts like fluid truth.

All visitors to the new Howell facilities will benefit from faith-based care. CHI recognizes inherent individual value, regardless of religious, socioeconomic, or personal background. Each patient, student, and employee can expect to meet Christian respect and love.

Padre Pio founded the Home for the Relief of Suffering 70 years ago as a healing ministry in southern Italy. Now, CHI believes that it is time to spread his mission to the western hemisphere.

“It was never Padre Pio’s intention to build just one hospital”, says Palazzolo. “This new hospital in America is to be the next link in a great chain.”

Tim Nelson is former cardiologist and pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Jackson. He considers this faith-based approach to medicine vital to patient well-being.

“My work as a physician helped me to realize that people are much more than blood, guts, and circulation,” he says.

Although pharmaceuticals and therapies may help relieve the outward symptoms of a given pathology, they may never fix its root cause.

“Spiritual hurt”

Spiritual hurt is something that people carry with them for their entire lives, remarks Nelson. “Spiritual healing is an act of God.”

Because the cure for such ailments is reconciliation and relationship with their Creator, freedom to speak with patients about sin and salvation is essential. CHI hopes to facilitate this connection in every patient interaction.

Further, the hospital and medical school will stand for Catholic moral theology against movements for abortion and transgenderism.

Anglican minister and media personality Calvin Robinson believes that this is vital for maintaining Christian values in the medical industry.

“Whether that’s in medicine or any other area of modern life,” explains Robinson, “Our job is to put Christ at the center of everything that we’re doing.”

He sees founding an academic institution on Christian principles as the best way to address moral controversies like IVF and abortion.

Preparing to open the hospital

To me, It is clear that the CHI Executive Board wish to serve patients as people made in the image and likeness of God. By honoring God humbly in the field of medicine, they seek to disciple to the nations in a way that’s new and exciting to Americans.

I believe this medical school will provide a rigorous and devout academic environment for future physicians to learn.

Of course, all healthcare start-ups face state licensing and other requirements. Next time, I hope to describe the regulatory barriers this hospital and medical school must overcome before they open.