Introducing St. Vincent Charity Medical Center

With completion of the transaction between the Sisters of Charity Health System and University Hospitals on Dec. 31, 2009, the Sisters of Charity Health System has regained 100 percent ownership and governance of St. Vincent Charity Hospital. With this strong commitment of the founding Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine to this 145-year-old institution, St. Vincent Charity Hospital today is reintroduced to the community as St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

“St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is not just one place. It is a hospital in the Campus District with off-site facilities across Greater Cleveland, including locations in Solon, Brecksville, Church Square, Brookpark, Independence and the former St. Luke’s,” said Sister Judith Ann Karam, CSA, president and CEO of the Sisters of Charity Health System and St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

“This modest change to our name also reflects the teaching role of the hospital, which includes training physicians, dentists, podiatrists and many other health care professionals for our community. This is further supported by our developing collaboration with Catholic Community Connection and also with our neighbors, Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College and the Campus District,” said Karam. “Yet it also remains true to our mission as an urban, faith-based hospital and our continuing quest for the highest quality and patient-centered health care across our diverse service lines as well as our evolving role in promoting health and wellness.”

Not only has the organization name changed, but it has also adopted the radiant cross of its parent organization, the Sisters of Charity Health System. This new identity emphasizes St. Vincent Charity Medical Center’s faith-based component as a beacon of hope and an extension of the healing ministry of Jesus. It also more closely ties the hospital to the Sisters of Charity Health System family brand, which is comprised of five hospitals, three grant-making foundations, two eldercare facilities and a number of community outreach ministries in Northeast Ohio and South Carolina.

The name and logo change was implemented internally on Jan. 11. However, the launch became official last week with presentation of the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical ExcellenceTM and launch of a new advertising campaign celebrating this accomplishment and rebranding St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

The rebranding campaign was an effort that began in June 2009 when the marketing department and creative partners, Twist Creative, convened a team of caregivers from across departments to help identify the strengths, weakness, challenges and opportunities present at St. Vincent. Over the course of several months and with the help of patient and employee satisfaction surveys and market research, the team developed brand positioning statements that reflect the personality, character and atmosphere at St. Vincent. The essence of the new brand is: Care you can believe in.

This new tagline reflects how St. Vincent Charity Medical Center delivers faith-based personalized health care. “As when the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine founded St. Vincent in 1865, our renowned physicians, nurses and staff understand that true healing comes not only from advanced medical technology, but also from a warm, holistic, healing touch,” said Karam.

“We started from the premise that when you’re sick or injured your desire to get well is equal to your desire to be treated well,” said Wendy Hoke, director of marketing and communications at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. “Our current advertising campaign reflects how our patients find comfort and confidence in an approach to health care worth believing in through the excellent care provided by our physicians and caregivers,” said Hoke.

Completing the new branding is the launch of a new, interactive and highly functional Web site that has reinforced the focus on delivering the best in clinical excellence. Additionally, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center has launched a social media strategy that includes Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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About St. Vincent Charity Medical Center
St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is Cleveland’s faith-based, high-quality healthcare provider. Our distinguished doctors and caregivers are devoted to treating every patient with clinical excellence and compassionate care. St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is home to the renowned Spine and Orthopedic Institute and the Center for Bariatric Surgery. Owned by the Sisters of Charity Health System, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center delivers health care you can believe in. The Sisters of Charity Health System is a family of hospitals, grant-making foundations, elder care and outreach organizations devoted to healing individual, families and communities. For more information, visit http://www.stvincentcharity.com/.

Queen of the Americas

In celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, here's a story I wrote for the Catholic Universe Bulletin that appeared on Dec. 1, 2006.

Queen of the Americas

Our Lady of Guadalupe feast reaches all Hispanics

By Wendy A. Hoke

For centuries she has been called upon to comfort, defend and protect. Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Marianist apparition who appeared as a native Aztec on a Mexican hilltop to a widower in 1531, is responsible in part for converting millions of indigenous people into Catholics.

Today she is known as the patron saint of the Americas, or the Queen of the Americas, as some Hispanics like Victor Pena of La Sagrada Familia refer to her.

For the faithful, like Eva Pena of Sacred Heart Chapel in Lorain, she is hope.

Sitting under her peaceful gaze in the sanctuary at Sacred Heart, Pena pauses from the history of Our Lady and says, “Can I tell you a personal story?”

Six years ago her husband passed away after a short bout with lung cancer. Several months later, her oldest son had a grand mal seizure and was diagnosed with a stage four malignant brain tumor. Surgery was performed, but doctors warned that he might never be the same, experiencing possible blindness, deafness and inability to chew properly.

“My friend told me to pray, to pray hard. So every day I would pray to Our Lady,” she said. Surgeons were able to remove 90 percent of the tumor. Within two months of his surgery, Pena’s son was back at work. He has been in recovery for five years.

Pena’s story echoes that of Juan Diego, the Mexican Indian Christian who was on his way to church when Mary appeared to him on a hill in Tepeyac near Mexico City. “Our Lady gave Juan Diego a message to take to the bishop, that she wanted a church built on the hill.”

In order to convince the bishop of her appearance, Our Lady filled Juan Diego’s tilma (cape tied around his neck) with fresh roses, which were not known to grow in this region, particularly in winter.

“When Juan Diego removes his tilma and the bishop sees all the roses, he is astounded,” she said.

At the time, Spanish missionaries were not very successful in converting indigenous people to Catholicism and much blood was shed in the process of trying to do so. But the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe changed that since she appeared not as a white European Madonna, but as a Native Aztec Indian, speaking in the native Indian language.

Her likeness, beautifully rendered in the mosaic in Sacred Heart Chapel, is filled with symbolism. Her red robe represents the blood shed through wars with native people. She wears a Christian cross at her throat and an Aztec cross on her womb. She is framed in golden rays of the sun, a symbol of Aztec culture. On her head is a crown of 12 stars and a rose pattern is on her cape.

She has been called upon to cure the sick, including Juan Diego’s uncle for whom he was praying at the time of the apparition. Alcoholics have turned to her for help in abstaining from drinking.
Her feast begins Monday (Dec. 4) with nightly novenas, some in Spanish and some in English, and runs through Dec. 12.

Eva Pena looks forward to the celebration. She grew up with a Mexican mother and an Italian father. Her mother prayed the rosary daily. “I grew up honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe for how miraculous she was.”

The feast day begins with an early morning service, called Las Mananitas, a good morning song traditionally played with mariachi band. Sacred Heart (440) 282-7172 and La Sagrada Familia (216) 631-2888 on Cleveland’s West Side both begin the day with traditional song and mariachi music.

Following Mass said in Spanish, both parishes host a celebration party with dancing and traditional Mexican food. It’s a big event drawing big crowds from all cultures. All are welcome, but plan to arrive early to get a seat.

At St. Mary in Painesville (440) 354-4381, Las Mananitas begins at 4 a.m. A procession of children dressed in traditional Indian costumes like Juan Diego and bearing gifts of food and flowers precedes the evening Mass, according to Christina Garcia.

“Las Mananitas connects us with Mexican culture,” explained Garcia. “Our Lady of Guadalupe adopted us; she’s like a mother to the Mexican people. The first thing Mexicans want to see when they cross the border is Our Lady to thank her,” she said.

Although the feast is largely centered on the church, it also is celebrated in some homes as part of the Christmas celebration.

“We put a statue in our home all during December with lights around it because that’s how we start Christmas. We’ll put her next to the Christmas tree so we can remember her all during December,” said Garcia.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Macedonia will celebrate with an evening prayer service with its PSR students, according to Father David Trask. Although it is not home to a Hispanic community, Father Trask said Our Lady greatly influenced the church’s founding pastor.

“We honor Our Lady for her many miracles and for who she stands for,” said Pena.

Merton and the influence of books

In 1963, a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner sent a questionnaire to Thomas Merton. Here were the questions and Merton's responses as found in, "Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing," edited by Robert Inchausti.

1. Name the last three books you have read.

The Platform Scripture of Hui Neng, translated by Wing Tsit Chan
The Proslogion by St. Anselm of Canterbury
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley

2. Name the books you are reading now.

Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture by John Huizinga
Ratio Verae Theologiae (The Real Meaning of Theology) by Erasmus
The Historian and Character by David Knowles

3. Books you intend to read.

Apology to the Iroquois by Edmund Wilson
The Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities, 1845-1900 by A.M. Allchin
Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm of Canterbury

4. Books that have influenced you.

Poetic Works of William Blake
Plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles
Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas
Sermons of Meister Eckhart
De Doctrina Christiana, Confessions, and Sermons on Psalms of St. Augustine
Rule of St. Benedict
The Bhagavad-Gita
The Imitation of Christ, etc.

5. Why have these books been an influence on you?

These books and others like them have helped me to discover the real meaning of my life, and have made it possible for me to get out of the confusion and meaninglessness of an existence completely immersed in the needs and passivities fostered by a culture in which sales are everything.

6. Name a book everyone should read.

Besides the Bible (taken for granted and not included above) and such classics as The Imitation of Christ, I would select a contemporary book which I consider to be of vital importance and which I think everyone should read at this time: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.

7. Why this book?

This is the most forceful statement about a crisis that is of immediate importance to every American, and indirectly affects the whole world today. It is something that people have to know about. The Negro has been trying to make himself heard: in this book he succeeds.

Food for thought, eh? How about you? How would you answer those seven questions?

UB story: Paging Father Art

My latest story in the UB is on Father Art Snedeker, the chaplain at MetroHealth Medical Center. My mom, who works in the Rammelkamp Center for Education and Research, remembers Father Art coming to visit her when she was a cancer patient at Metro. (Photo by Bill Reiter)

Paging Father Art

MetroHealth Chaplain helps critical patients
imagine their way to healing

By Wendy A. Hoke

CLEVELAND-The burn unit on the fifth floor of MetroHealth’s near west side campus is quiet today. As Father Art Snedecker, the Catholic chaplain, enters the unit he walks past the nurse’s station when his pager goes off. He turns to use the phone and check in on a patient. After a brief call, all is well—for now.

Snedecker is the chaplain for all the hospital’s critical care units, including patients and staff, and administers to its many Catholic patients.

Lynne Yurko, nurse manager of the burn unit, is standing nearby and smiles when she sees him coming down the hallway. “He is our priest, friend and colleague,” she says. “We laugh together and cry together and when something awful or evil happens, we pray together,” she says.

His presence fosters a peaceful environment in this critical care unit where stress levels frequently run very high.

“Father Art,” as his ID badge says, has been part of the hospital’s multi-disciplinary team for 10 years, and it’s a position that mixes his love of Christ and the power of prayer in healing with the miracles of modern medicine.

His presence has become so important to the burn unit that he, Yurko and three physicians conducted research on the role his pastoral care plays in reducing pain and anxiety in burn patients.

Using prayer, pastoral counseling, guided imagery (the use of rhythmic breathing and visualization) and breath of God (imagining the spirit of God entering them as they breathe), researchers found a significant decrease in both pain and anxiety for patients regardless of gender or faith community affiliation.

The work of guided imagery grew out of Father Snedecker’s work with a 15-year-old burn patient a number of years ago. “This boy had a high degree of pain and anxiety and was under sedation. He should not have remembered anything. But he ran with the image of being at a lake and fishing. In between expletives he would talk about the weather, the day, the clouds, the sky. What was so incredible was when he came out of sedation he wanted to apologize for his language. He should not have even remembered it,” he says, because of the heavy medications.

The therapy worked as Father Snedecker knew it would.

When he was in seminary in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Father Snedecker would have reflection retreats in which he was asked to picture himself sitting at a table with Jesus. “What’s he wearing? Is he smiling? Can you look into his eyes? What is he saying?”

Daydreaming and the process of sighing or expelling a deep breath is the body’s natural release of stress. That’s what Father Snedecker uses to empower patients in their own healing. “It’s as powerful as a person’s imagination and as intimate as their breath.”

In hindsight his path seems very clear.

Father Snedecker had always wanted to become a doctor. He was an orderly at Parma General Hospital and entered Bowling Green State University as a pre-med major. But after he entered college he received a different calling and chose instead to enter the seminary.

After his ordination, he was given a choice to pursue campus ministry or hospital chaplaincy. One night while sitting outside the chapel at Parma Hospital, he prayed for guidance. “I said no to chaplaincy and as I was driving away I wondered why I did that.

“Looking back I think I was too young and didn’t have enough life experience,” he says.

After years as a campus minister and then a parish priest, he suffered a heart attack and, at age 48, required open-heart surgery.

“I knew I needed to make lifestyle changes and I knew I’d been given a second chance,” he says. Against the advice of friends, he resigned as pastor of Immaculate Conception in Akron, and it wasn’t long after that former Bishop Anthony Pilla asked if he’d consider being a hospital chaplain.

What began as a temporary assignment became much more from the first moment Father Snedecker, now 60, set foot on MetroHealth. “As soon as I walked in the doors, I fell in love with the place. God blesses Metro because it cares for the poor,” he says.

“I learned very early on that I couldn’t do this alone. Every unit of the hospital operates as a team in caring for the patient. The work is not mine alone because Christ is here with me.”

The job remains tough because he faces not only trauma and tragedy, but also acts of evil at times. “My faith has been challenged, but also rewarded and I am a richer person for having this work in my life.”

Hoke is a freelance writer.

"We are already one"

And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

— Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal

Tuesday Tidbits: Why Joe Biden rocks, WAPO Wonder bread, power and sex in the church and another broken bone

Why Joe Biden rocks
I've been a fan of Sen. Joe Biden's for one simple reason: he is a no-nonsense guy unafraid to speak his mind. It's a shame his presidential run didn't get very far ironically in part because of his forthrightness. If you missed his op-ed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal, I suggest you give it a look. There's also a video bit on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program below. Biden for veep? Secretary of State?

He does a nice job of talking about the current administration's squandered opportunities. There's this:

At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the "war on terrorism" that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.

Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make.

And this:

Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can't identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win. (Bold is mine.)

Wonder Bread at WAPO op-ed
Last week was one of those weeks when I was working in triage mode getting through various deadlines so I missed getting some things posted that caught my eye. One was WAPO ombud Deborah Howell's look at the complexion of the paper's op-ed pages.

I love the Post, but I have to agree that its op-ed pages are so vanilla that I tend not to read them very often. The old tucks have been holding court so long (and vociferously) that I'm sure there's a "why bother" mentality of some would-be contributors.

But the answer to why bother is that this nation desperately needs to hear new voices. It's the only way to ensure our democracy, which frankly feels "less than" these days. And that's partly because we've been living under an administration that labels citizens as unpatriotic for having a difference of opinion. I saw a bumper sticker on a car in the Bay Village Library today that said, and I'm paraphrasing: Dissent is the truest form of patriotism. If you know anything of Bay Village, you know that it just warms my heart to know that there are few others like me in this town.

A variation of the same could be said of the Catholic church.

Power and sex in the Catholic church
On Thursday, June 5, Cleveland-based FutureChurch welcomes Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson who will speak on his book, "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus." Father Donald Cozzens, who used to be a frequent celebrant at my church and is now teaching at John Carroll University, wrote the forward. The public lecture will be held at 7 p.m. at 3430 Rocky River Drive.

This is one of only 10 stops on his U.S. tour. He's been banned from speaking on church property in some places and word is Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon is not pleased with his appearance here in Cleveland, but (at least for now) is allowing it to take place.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese banned him because he believes his work is counter to doctrinal teaching. I wonder if Mahony has even read the book. Here's what he wrote to Robinson.

I have come to learn that you new book is being investigated by the Australian Bishops' Conference because of concerns about doctrinal errors and other statements in the book contrary to Church teaching.

I have also learned that His Eminence, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops, has urged you to cancel your visit to the United States.

Consequently, I am hereby requesting that your cancel you visit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles now set for June 12, 2008. Canon 763 makes it clear that the Diocesan Bishop must safeguard the preaching of God's Word and the teachings of the Church in his own Diocese. Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

What are they so afraid of that they would seek to deny someone's opportunity to have a voice? More to the point: WWJD?

Another broken bone
My little Mikey broke his wrist on Friday while riding his bike home from a friend's house. A very kind mom drove him and his bike home and I wish I knew who she was so I could properly thank her. (I was at my neighbor's and she had left by the time my older boys found me.) Today he is sporting a royal blue cast that goes above his elbow and is already filled with signatures from his friends and teachers. He wouldn't let me sign it first because he didn't want me to spoil the clean look. So I signed after school in very large lettering on the under side of his arm, "LOVE, MOM (smiley face)."

Fortunately, we are only looking at a total of four weeks for this injury and at most, some lost baseball games, a week or two of three-on-three summer hoops and some pool time.

My baby must have been on my brain because I had one of those bizarre dreams in the early dawn today where I was getting everyone off to school—high school and middle school—when a 2-year-old version of Mikey came around the corner and said, "Hi, Mama." And a surprised me said, "Hi, Baby Boy." It was so real that I could see and smell his little toddler face, with his precious little cheeks, his chubby bare feet and his long, fluttery eyelashes.

It was the very best kind of sweetness. Unfortunately, at a beefy 9 years old, there's no way I could balance him on my hip these days.




Word of the day
Manichean: a believer in religious or philosophical dualism
Example: "You're either with us or against us." — President George W. Bush

Pedaling for peace

"I believe in women taking a role to make peace in the area," Youssef adds. It's a perspective shared by most in the group: that dialogue by people like themselves, and not politicians behind closed doors, is the key to improving relations between countries and laying a foundation for peace.

From "Women on two wheels: A Middle East dialogue tour" in today's Christian Science Monitor.

Word of the day
buoyant: capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level

UB features and the end of an era

In addition to the Monitor story from yesterday, this has been a big writing month for me. I'm heading to Columbus tomorrow for the final KnowledgeWorks writing workshop, which will be a longer narrative on the past four years of education reform at Cleveland Heights High School. More on that later this week. For the third consecutive year, I've written mini-profiles of Judson's Smart Living award-winners. I'll link to those once they are posted online.

Friday's Catholic Universe Bulletin contains two of my stories, both are online. One is a profile of Tim Warneka, who has written a book about Catholic servant leadership. The other is a feature on Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in Euclid, which this year commemorates the 150th anniversary of the last apparition of Mary before Bernadette in Lourdes, France.

Though I'm sure it won't be marked in the annals of Cleveland journalism history, this issue also marked the last for editor Dennis Sadowski. Last week, as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Washington, D.C., so too did Dennis. He's taken a position as a reporter/editor there with Catholic News Service.

I've known Dennis since the early 1990s. For the past three years, I've written regularly for him and I've gotten to know and respect his journalistic sensibilities. He trusted me to explore a new dimension to my writing when I approached him with a very vague idea I had about writing about Thomas Merton. He gave me permission to let my ideas wander and the freedom of time needed to make a story great. The Merton story went on to win first place in religion coverage in the 2006 Ohio SPJ Awards and I went on to become a regular contributor to the UB. Good writers appreciate good editors. It is a match made in heaven and is built on trust and knowledge of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Dennis knew how to match story assignments to the writer. His e-mails usually began something like, "I've got a great story for you." And he was nearly always correct.

Few people stay in the same job for the duration of their career these days, but Dennis was at the UB for 10 years, almost a mini-lifetime. So I thought I'd share a bit from his farewell column.

"After living my entire life within an hour or two of Lorain, God is challenging me to move from my comfort zone—yes, even working at the UB had gotten to be rather comfortable—to experience new horizons in a world full of hurt and hope. My hope and prayer is that I will continue to follow God's plan with grace and kindness and with as little anxiety as possible.

"Thanks, Cleveland, for putting your faith and trust in me to tell your stories."

Here are the latest stories.

Warneka builds on the principles of service
By Wendy A. Hoke

Tim Warneka has the peaceful expression of a Buddhist monk, approaching his Catholic faith in a Zen-like manner by giving his full attention to others. It’s a skill he’s been perfecting all of his adult life.

He combines all of his influences spanning nearly 20 years as a psychologist and black belt in Aikido to pioneer the concept of Catholic Servant Leadership, which takes the principles of servant leadership (service to others, collaboration, trust, empathy) and applies the Catholic faith as an overlay.

His book, “Black Belt Leader, Peaceful Leader: An Introduction to Catholic Servant Leadership,” provides a guide for discussion on how to use Aikido, emotional intelligence, servant leadership and tenants of Catholic faith to become a better leader.

“God was grooming me for a number of years,” says Warneka, a resident of Wickliffe and member of St. Noel Parish, Willoughby Hills. He spent his early years in Lakewood, attending St. Clement Parish and School where his parents were very active.

“I remember being in the church basement so often and realizing that there’s meaning here, that this place changes people’s lives and not just on Sunday,” he says.

Catholicism was like breathing, it was just there and his parents modeled faith and leadership in action. They led retreats, were active in the pro-life movement and hosted a Vietnamese family to live in their basement for six months.

But when he was in fifth grade, his family moved from the tight-knit Irish-Catholic community to Perry, where he first encountered peers with divorced parents, a Protestant community and public schools.

“It was rocky. I had my first experience of being marginalized because I entered a community in which friendships were made by first grade. I was on the outside,” he says.

He learned to appreciate different perspectives as a result.

But it was as a student at the University of Dayton that he found his calling. He met the Marianists and describes that as “life-changing.”

“They started handing me books to read and it was all over. I knew this was what I wanted to do,” he says.

He considered the Marianist novitiate for a while and even contemplated entering the Trappists, but one summer break he met his wife, Beth, who was working in a Catholic bookstore. He switched his major to psychology and never looked back.

Heavily influenced by the writing of Carl Jung, Thomas Merton, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Thich Nhat Hanh, Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, Warneka says he developed a deep respect for the individual subjective experience.

“To see the Marianists live that out was inspiring. They always had time for people. I came from a large high school and a family with eight people in the house. No one had time for anyone. But at UD, even the president of the university knew me by name. There, my reading and life experience came together,” he says.

After graduate school he became a psychologist, but today calls himself a life coach. “It’s therapy for people who don’t want to call it therapy,” he explains.

While he was in grad school at Loyola of Chicago, Warneka stumbled upon the other great influence in his life. He had been reading about Aikido, which is a nonviolent martial art that seeks to protect the person who attacks you. He walked into a center on All Saint’s Day in 1989 and found an international seminar taking place with one of the master’s from Japan.

“It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. The teacher moved like water through the students and around them. His movements were so refined and androgynous,” he says.
So what pulls his Catholic faith and his martial arts and his psychology together?

“Embodiment. Our culture is very anti-body. Being embodied is front and central to what it means to be Catholic. It’s in our basic prayers. People have the answers inside them. They just need to get clear and quiet long enough to hear what’s inside of them,” he believes.

Warneka hopes that his book and his Catholic Servant Leadership philosophy will take root and build awareness that we all have potential to be a leader if only we allow ourselves to be aware of our bodies and our emotions.

For more information on Catholic Servant Leadership, visit www.catholicservantleader.com

Hoke is a freelance writer.

A hundred little blessings
Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine celebrates 150 years of grace, devotion
By Wendy A. Hoke

EUCLID-When Vincent Mancuso was 10 years old he was visiting Little Italy for the Feast of the Assumption when someone accidentally shoved him. He fell and the pair of scissors in his hand pierced his right eye, leaving him blind.

The next month, his parents took him to Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in Euclid for the annual closing of the grotto Mass. “My mother told me, ‘Wash your eye with the water.’ And so I did. When we got home I said, ‘Ma, Pa, I can see.’ They didn’t believe me. But when they took me to the doctor they learned that I could see,” says Mancuso, who turned 90 this month.

Over the next 80 years, that right eye has suffered from a detached retina and cataracts, but he still has vision. “Our Lady has always pulled me through,” he says.

Sister Rochelle Guertal, of the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity, director of the shrine, says they don’t proclaim any miracles of healing at the shrine, but rather count a number of blessings or graces, much like Mancuso’s. Indeed, an enclosed case on the grounds holds a crutches, braces and glasses no longer needed by those who were “healed.”

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in France, where the Blessed Mother appeared in a series of apparitions in 1858 to a young girl named Bernadette. Euclid is home to the national shrine and is joining in the celebration.

Situated on top of a hill overlooking Euclid Avenue, the shrine stands today as an oasis of peace and devotion. When in full bloom, stately trees buffer the sound of the traffic below.

After the Civil War, the property was a vineyard, home to “Euclid grapes,” known for their distinctive flavor seasoned by Lake Erie breezes. Julia Harms, who owned the land with her husband, was a devout Catholic who always had a vision of the Blessed Mother on the property. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd would regularly pick grapes at the vineyard, so in 1920 when the Harms children decided to sell the land, the Good Shepherd Sisters took over.

Two years later, while on a trip to the motherhouse in France, the sisters were inspired to build a grotto similar to Lourdes on their site. And they were given a unique treasure from a Dominican priest--a piece of the stone being hewn into a statute of the Blessed Mother on the site where she appeared before Bernadette in Lourdes.

Today, that noted piece of stone is embedded into the rock of the grotto where the water flows over it and into a pool. The treasure makes Cleveland’s shrine unique among others throughout the country, including the grotto at the University of Notre Dame.

Over the years the Sisters of the Good Shepherd diminished in size and by 1952, the Trinitarian Sisters were looking for more property. They found the shrine, were given permission by Archbishop Edward F. Hoban, then bishop of Cleveland, to transfer their novitiate and continue the work of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

Under their supervision the shrine has expanded to accommodate visitors from more than 44 countries and a number of regular devotees.

“Some people are hoping for miracles when they come,” says Sister Guertal. “I explain that sometimes the miracle is acceptance and that can be a bigger miracle than healing.”

More than anything, the shrine gives people an opportunity to silence to noise of modern life and to listen to God. “People come to be open to the Lord through the Blessed Mother. When they do, things happen,” Sister Guertal says.

Mass is held outside in front of the grotto at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday from May through October (weather permitting). Novenas, rosary processions and Stations of the Cross also are prayed regularly. The shrine remains open throughout the year.

Hoke is a freelance writer.

Word of the day
contemplative: a person who practices concentration on spiritual things as a form of private devotion

Art imitating life, Pew study and 'stunning ignorance'

Was West Wing a precursor to 2008 presidential race?
Hadn't thought about The West Wing show in a while, but Slate V has an interesting look at the inspiration for the dark horse candidacy of Congressman Matthew Santos (played by Jimmy Smits). "I do want to win. You know? But I can't do it by being just another cardboard cut out even if it is smart tactics," Santos tells Josh Lyman, who is trying to convince him to run.

Political consultant at the time, David Axelrod, who is running Obama's presidential campaign had lengthy conversations with the show's writers. He was running Obama's U.S. Senate campaign at the time of the show.

If you recall, the fictional contest between Santos and a sitting vice president leads to a brokered Democratic convention. I knew I liked those writers at The West Wing. They were so smart. Although Aaron Sorkin remains the greatest of them all.

Santos ended winning the presidency against a formidable and even appealing Republican candidate in Arnold Vinick (played by Alan Alda). And then he did something really different— he asked Vinick to serve in his administration.

Strap on your seatbelts because I'm all over the place today. This is a good sign for me—my brain is super-charged and that's just the place where this creative individual needs to operate.

Pew on religion in American life
I've been reading a lot about the Pew study on religion and public life. I can't say that I'm at all surprised by the results. As readers here know, I've had my own struggles with the Catholic church and I'm not exactly an active participant right now. But I like to think that my writing about people of faith is in some small way helping me to live out my faith.

I've been wondering if Catholicism will necessarily evolve—like Judaism has done over time—into different sects (conservative, reform, orthodox, etc.). Is this the type of evolution necessary for the church to survive? I'm not saying I know the answer, only that it's something about which I've been thinking.

Christopher Dickey writes today in WAPO's On Faith section that America is a society of choice. We were founded by choice and our focus is never on our history, but on our future. While we "have" or possess things (spouse, children, job, home), most of the rest of the world "belongs"—to families, place, history, culture and faith.

"You might not pray, you might not even believe, but who you feel you are is profoundly shaped by the sense of the past from which you came, and to which you belong. That may be a source of strength or frustration. It may be many things. But it is not a matter of choice."

Dickey, who is the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek, goes on to write that the real clash of civilizations is between our notion of having and the rest of the world's sense of belonging.

"When Americans find their way into the middle of sectarian conflicts, like Lebanon's in the 1980s or Iraq's today, they often feel lost. We are about 'freedom.' They are about 'fundamentalism.' We're thinking about where we're going, they're obsessed with where they came from. (In the United States 'history' is actually an epithet, as in, 'You're history.')"

Which all leads me finally to this study reported in today's New York Times:

'Stunning ignorance'
In our push to teach to the reading and math portions of standardized tests, it seems that we are leaving a generation of 17-year-olds ignorant of history and literature.

"The survey results, released on Tuesday, demonstrate that a significant proportion of teenagers live in 'stunning ignorance' of history and literature, said the group that commissioned it, Common Core," reports the Times

From the report, available here as PDF.

"The problems that the above results pose for civic discourse are neither murky nor obscure. One need not search far to find attacks on anti-terrorism measures that draw upon imagery from 1984 or that use the term 'Orwellian.' Pundits, novelists, and journalists routinely wield references to Job or Oedipus in making points about the trials of a public figure or the complexities of familial relationships. High school graduates unacquainted with these terms are handicapped when it comes to engaging in public debates, perhaps recognizing the terms and phrases but lacking comprehension of the assumptions and associations that lend them meaning. Magazine and newspaper articles are not infrequently strewn with allusions to a fallen figure being branded with a 'scarlet letter' or to it being 'the best of times and the worst of times'—rhetorical nods that presume familiarity and help readers navigate the narrative. Those unfamiliar with terms and references that authors and editors presume to be common knowledge may find themselves struggling to make sense of seemingly prosaic accounts. What's worse is that these students lack the knowledge and wisdom that historical information provides and that artistic works contain.

This report contains yet more evidence that education reform, if it is to be truly successful, must be systemic and simultaneous.

Word of the day
picayune: something trivial