By Dottie LaMantia | Correspondent

Nursing is a profession that requires skill, compassion and a strong sense of ethics. For Catholic nurses, it’s a profession that also requires grounding in faith.

With this in mind, Bishop David O’Connell, C.M., encouraged registered nurses Patricia Sayers and Maria Arvonio to talk with other nurses and gauge their interest in forming a council of the National Association of Catholic Nurses in the Diocese of Trenton.

“The NACN allows Catholic nurses to be grounded in their faith, to integrate it into our professional practices, and to support our patients and respect their faith practices,” said Dr. Sayers, a veteran nurse with a doctorate in nursing practice from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and member in St. Raphael-Holy Angels Parish, Hamilton. “It will give Catholic nurses the opportunity to promote moral principles within the Catholic context in nursing and stimulate desire for professional development,” she said.

“NACN-USA focuses on educational programs, spiritual nourishment, patient advocacy, and the integration of faith and health, while promoting the concept of freedom of religion and conscience in a time when those freedoms are eroding,” Dr. Sayers said. Dr. Sayers and Arvonio are inviting all interested nurses, nurse practitioners, student nurses, health paraprofessionals and other health practitioners to an informal Meet and Greet gathering June 15 at a location and time still to be decided. Marie Hilliard, director of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Philadelphia, will be a guest speaker.

“We are so grateful that Bishop O’Connell is open to this possibility,” said Arvonio, a nursing supervisor at Lourdes Medical Center, Willingboro, who will receive her master’s degree in bioethics from St. Joseph University this month and who worships in St. John Neumann Parish, Mount Laurel.

It will be up to Dr. Sayers and Arvonio to discover if there is broad interest within the nursing community for establishing a diocesan chapter, and if other Catholic nurses value the ongoing education and faith support such an organization would provide, especially in light of the new challenges nurses face everyday as state legislatures consider end of life issues.

“While NACN-USA was founded in the 1940s, it disbanded in the 1970s because of a lack of membership,” Dr. Sayers said. “We never felt our consciences were being jeopardized.”

That changed as more secular approaches were being taken in health care, and the organization experienced a resurgence.

“These conscience issues entered my professional life when I received a memo telling me that as a nursing supervisor, I had to oversee new-age therapies, which is in conflict with my Catholic faith. That’s when I joined the group,” she added.

Based in the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., NACN-USA is a voting member of the International Committee for Nurses and Medico-Social Assistants, whose mission is to promote Christian and professional values in nursing care. Founded in Lourdes, France in the 1930s, the international organization has chapters in 60 countries.

For more information email Maria Arvonio at elishaspirit2003@yahoo. com, or Pat Sayers at sayers.patricia@ ymail.com.