Marian Helper • Fall 2024 • Marian.org 9 The 19th annual Divine Mercy Medicine, Bioethics, and Spirituality Conference, held June 5-7, was a great success, in large part due to the planning efforts of Fr. Kazimierz Chwalek, MIC, and Marie Romagnano, MSN, RN, CCM-R, founder of Healthcare Professionals for Divine Mercy. Conference speakers on the theme “Exploring Compassion and Mercy in Healthcare” included Sr. M. Salvatrice Musial, OLM, from the Pontifical Academy of Theology; Bryan Thatcher, MD, founder of Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy (EADM); and Christopher Klofft, PhD, an associate professor of theology at Assumption University. Robin Goldsmith, MD (right), president and chief medical officer of the St. Gianna Clinic in De Pere, Wisconsin, spoke at the conference on “The Need for Courage and Compassion in Catholic Primary Care.” “This talk could just as easily have been titled, ‘Jesus, I trust in You,’” she noted. “There’s no greater time than now to rejuvenate and return medicine to its roots to the vocation it once was, where God is recognized as the Divine Healer and each person is viewed as a gift from God, deserving dignity and respect." Visiting the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy was the Most Reverend Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso (center), Archbishop of Kaduna, Nigeria, who also serves as Vice-President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria. In his archdiocese in the north of the country, many priests have been abducted by terrorists, and the rate of suicide has increased, as times are hard and many people have lost hope. But Archbishop Ndagoso is a courageous leader; he recently described his priests as “weightlifters”: “This is what we are called to do: to lift up the heavy burdens that our people carry and give them hope; to lift off the weight from people’s shoulders, to give them the assurance that our Master gave when He said, ‘Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened.’” Please pray for Archbishop Ndagoso and all the priests and people in his archdiocese, that they may find peace and never lose hope in the saving power of God’s mercy! Pictured with Archbishop Ndagoso are Fr. Luke Ango Namiji, a priest of his archdiocese, and the Very Rev. Chris Alar, Provincial Superior.
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