Adaptations forced by the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated plans by the Saint Luke Institute to shift away from its longstanding residential mental health treatment center and return to its origins as a fully outpatient program this month.
Saint Luke Institute has since 1977 been a widely used program for priests, deacons and religious brothers and sisters from around the world to seek treatment for a range of mental health needs, including substance abuse or addiction, depression, anxiety or personality disorders.
With the end of October, the independent Catholic education and treatment center moved into a downtown office building near the Silver Spring Metro station, departing the large residential campus a few miles away on Metzerott Road that decades earlier housed the Washington Theological Union.
Capuchin Franciscan Father David Songy, president of Saint Luke Institute, told the Catholic Standard that a shift toward an intensive outpatient program instead of a residential one was beginning before COVID-19 changed how every kind of organization operates. “The pandemic made it dire,” he said.
The property on Metzerott had space to house 50 people in residential care, he said. “But with a building this big, we needed to maintain a certain population” to support the expenses. That had been a tough benchmark to hit recently.
Insurance companies had long been hesitant to cover the cost of residential treatment, Father Songy explained. Month-long stays recently have run $20,000 for the combination of intensive treatment and living expenses. Those included round-the-clock nursing staff, meals, housekeeping and security, in addition to five or more hours a day of various types of therapy and counseling.
“It was kind of a cross between boot camp and a monastery,” he said. The transition means the full treatment programs will still be provided, five days a week, typically for at least a one-month period. But participants will live somewhere unconnected to Saint Luke Institute, such as at a religious order house or retreat center, Father Songy said. One change that will bring is that insurers are more willing to pay for the intensive treatment program without the in-residence component, he said.
The focus of intensive treatment remains the same as it was in a residential setting, according to Father Songy. Hours of work a day over a month gives the chance to tackle complex problems in depth, as opposed to a more intermittent counseling schedule familiar to many of an hour-long session once or twice a week.
“There is a lot of work that can be done in an intensive program that can’t be tackled in once-a-week counseling,” he said. Saint Luke Institute staff will continue to track its clients for five years after their treatment ends. It also will keep offering a range of other services. Those include: outpatient therapy in a less intensive model; assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life and spiritual integration and spiritual direction.
At the institute’s annual benefit Oct. 18 at the Apostolic Nunciature, Msgr. John J. Enzler, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, was presented with the Saint Luke Award. The honor is given annually to recognize leadership in the Church and support for the mission of the institute.
Father Songy said Msgr. Enzler “gives us the perfect example of what you want the priest to look like by the time he’s done at Saint Luke Institute. You want him to be someone who gives his life for others.”
In presenting the honor to Msgr. Enzler, Christine Gill, vice chair of the institute’s board of directors, said “his great work at Catholic Charities has benefited so many in our community over the years.” She described him as “beloved for his pastor’s heart.”
Accepting the award, Msgr. Enzler said he agreed to accept the award in part because he was happy to support the event’s fundraising goal. But also, he said, because he wants to be in solidarity with priests, brothers, sisters and religious who are struggling. He said that people sometimes think of Saint Luke as a place for treatment of pedophilia, but that is an outdated notion.
Msgr. Enzler noted that its services assist “a lot of young priests, people who frankly are burned out, people who have clinical depression, people who are handling maybe some kind of addictions.” They come for services “because they want to be great leaders in ministry,” he said.
Saint Luke Institute includes non-residential centers in Towson, Maryland; Louisville, Kentucky, and Manchester, England, in addition to Silver Spring. It also offers online training on a range of spiritual and psychological health topics.
