title: Public juridic person ensures Catholic presence. How one Catholic healthcare system assumed a lay model of sponsorship.
abstract: To ensure that the Catholic healing presence remained in the communities it has served for many years, the United States St. Joseph Province of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal (Grey Nuns) is transferring its healthcare institutions to a lay model of sponsorship. The new arrangement makes Covenant Health Systems (CHS) a public juridic person of pontifical right sponsoring the U.S. Grey Nuns' healthcare organizations. In addition to extensive education and communication efforts aimed at all its constituencies, CHS needed to pass through several stages before it could become a public juridic person. Approval had to be obtained from the Grey Nuns Provincial Administration and General Administration (in Montreal). Proposed statutes and bylaws had to be drafted. The CHS Board of Directors had to sign a letter of intent, indicating its willingness to accept these responsibilities of sponsorship. The Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Apostolic Societies approved the request for public juridic person status. CHS and the Grey Nuns will take a year to implement the transfer, which will be official on October 24, 1996. CHS will continue to operate in a manner consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church by complying with the Ethical and Religious Directives and by maintaining contact with local ordinaries.
authors.affiliation: Covenant Health Systems, Lexington, MA, USA.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mulvihill
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D002410:Catholicism; D006754:Hospital Restructuring; D016519:Hospitals, Religious / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009096:Multi-Institutional Systems / Q000458:organization & administration; D010067:Ownership / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016730:Program Development; D014481:United States