March 15, 2026, 12:00 PM
This past week I was waxing nostalgic about how newspapers used to work. The evening paper that some kid from the neighborhood would deliver. A paper with a good number of pages and sections. Full reports on school sporting events. Saturdays filled with pictures and descriptions of weddings that had happened that very day. And a page that listed the admissions and discharges from our local hospitals.
It’s that last item that I want to talk about.
Those admissions and discharges won’t be in any newspaper these days. I find that sad because it’s symptom of how much our culture has shifted its focus from the community to the individual. Those listings were there because we were a community. We were supposed to be concerned about one another. Now it often feels like we’re each one individual isolated from everyone else. I’m sure you don’t need to be told that such a vision runs completely counter to Christian values.
But, as we often say, “It is what it is.” HIPPA regulations insist that hospital information stays extremely private. No admissions and discharges in the paper. No admissions and discharges available to the clergy. That means we need to approach pastoral care for our parishioners in the hospital in a different way. Here’s the way it now works:
When you—or your family member—are in the hospital, contact us. (Contacting us doesn’t mean waiting for us to accidently find out on Facebook!) There are a number of ways you can do that.
First, you can ask the hospital to reach out to us. Talk to the chaplain. If you can’t find one, talk to the hospital personnel caring for your loved one. They’ll pass the info on to the chaplain. And they’re great at calling us. It doesn’t have to be an emergency. Quite often I get the call: “You have a parishioner in room ###.”
Secondly, contact us directly. And I put the emphasis on “directly”! Don’t call the Parish Office on a Friday evening, leave a message with office staff and wonder why we’re not rushing to your hospital room. That message will stay on voicemail until the staff comes in on Monday morning. You can call the office, but use my voicemail. Better yet, use the email addresses that Fr Dias and I have in your bulletin every single week. I can access my email wherever I happen to be. I don’t have to wait to get back to the office. Email me and I have your loved one’s room number while I’m waiting in line at the grocery store—that means I get there much more quickly!
Bottom line: Your hospitals and your parishes want to serve. We want to hear your confessions, make sure you’re receiving communion, anoint you when you’re seriously ill, be present to pray all along this earthly pilgrimage. Help us do that efficiently!
Fr. McCreary
