The John Carroll Society at its Rose Mass Luncheon on March 10 at the Church of the Little Flower Parish in Bethesda, Maryland, honored three doctors who volunteer with the Catholic Charities Health Care Network in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington with 2024 Pro Bono Health Care Awards: Dr. Fredrick G. Barr, Dr. Stephany McGann, and Dr. Jonathan Ross.
In addition, the John Carroll Society presented Father Jean Marie Vincent, the Catholic chaplain at Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville, with its 2024 Msgr. Harry A. Echle Award for Outstanding Service in Health Care Ministry. A French-born priest in residence at St. Raphael Parish in Rockville, he has served at that hospital since 2020.
Dr. Peter Hamm, another longtime volunteer with the Catholic Charities Health Care Network who has also provided pro bono care in a remote clinic in the Dominican Republic, received the 2024 James Cardinal Hickey Lifetime Service Award. He is a Chevy Chase-based pulmonologist and the father of 12 children, with 27 grandchildren, some of whom formed an impressive cheering section for him. His wife, Maria Suarez Hamm, is the Harvard-educated founder and former director of Centro Tepeyac Women’s Center in Silver Spring.
Dr. McGann, a rheumatologist who is a medical officer with the U.S. Public Health Service, is a longtime volunteer with Catholic Charities and tutors undergraduate students, medical students and physicians in the management of rheumatologic diseases. She has volunteered more than 100 hours a year each of the last three years and told the Catholic Standard that she has seen patients make significant improvement in conditions such as arthritis, a disease which tends to impact the joints.
Dr. Barr, who has a private practice in medical oncology and hematology in Chevy Chase, has been providing pro bono care to numerous patients in Catholic Charities Health Care Network for many years.
Dr. Ross has been active in providing neurologic consultations and care to many Catholic Charities patients. The Rose Mass luncheon program noted, “He enjoys taking care of these patients and feels privileged to care for them.”
The John Carroll Society’s 32nd annual Rose Mass at the Church of the Little Flower preceded the luncheon. Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory was the main celebrant at the Mass, and the concelebrants included Washington Auxiliary Bishops Roy Campbell Jr. and Evelio Menjivar and 10 priests. Since the Mass takes place on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, it falls on Laetare Sunday, when priests wear rose-colored vestments, as the Church expresses hope and joy, with Lent more than halfway over, amidst the fasts and discipline of the liturgical season. The rose also symbolizes life, whose care is entrusted to the healing professions.
“The Word of God is clear: sickness, disease and death with not be permitted to define us. They will not be permitted to have the last word,” said the Rose Mass homilist, Msgr. Anthony Frontiero, the Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.
Noting that “so many…are struggling to find their way,” Msgr. Frontiero encouraged the nurses, doctors, healthcare administrators and hospital chaplains present to give hope to their patients, which he called “the most powerful medicine of all.” He contrasted such a message with “a world that so often offers us darkness.” He continued, “Patients need to know, that in spite of their infirmities…they matter.”
Msgr. Frontiero asserted that while a doctor’s reflecting the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm in healing patents is different than Eucharistic healing, they are not mutually exclusive.
Two members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who take care of low-income senior citizens at their Jeanne Jugan Residence in Washington, D.C., brought up the offertory gifts at Mass to Cardinal Gregory.
One of the luncheon attendees, Dr. Joel E. Bruce, is a nephrologist from Charlotte, North Carolina, who provides remote consultations through the Catholic Charities Health Care Network of the Archdiocese of Washington. He began offering the pro bono internal medicine services more than two years ago, when his friend of more than 35 years, Deacon Darryl Kelley, a member of the board of governors of the John Carroll Society and former Maryland state delegate, recruited him to serve in the network. Much of Dr. Bruce’s pro bono work involves preventing kidney failure.
Sister Romana Uzodimma, a member of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus who serves as the Director of Quality Assurance for Adult and Children Clinical Services for the Catholic Charities Health Care Network, told the Catholic Standard that there are more than 300 volunteers providing pro bono health care services through the network. “The providers are very generous,” she said. A religious for 30 years who grew up in Nigeria, she has served as a manager with the network for seven years and received the John Carroll Society Medal in 2023.
Members of the network gave more than 2,900 in volunteer hours during 2023, according to Dr. Ricardo Perez, a dentist who served as the Rose Mass Committee Chair.
Students from Georgetown University School of Medicine also attended the event and had their photo taken with Cardinal Gregory.
