Jubilee of Hope

April 10, 2025

By Michelle Stanford, M.D.

What a gift we have as Catholics to participate in the Jubilee of Hope this year! Medicine can benefit from this Jubilee. 

As George Weigel points out in The Catholic World Report: “American medicine and American medical education are in need of serious reform. Getting the federal government’s healthcare agencies out of the DEI swamps and the gender-fluidity wilderness is only a start, welcome as that is. American medicine needs to rediscover its soul and its conscience. Well-catechized Catholic medical professionals are uniquely equipped to aid in that rediscovery. The Catholic Medical Association has a considerable role to play here.”

Further, John Bergsma notes in Jesus and the Jubilee that “God established this year of jubilee – a year in which God redeemed, released, returned and granted rest to His people – as a great favor wherein all people enjoyed not just forgiveness but the other great goods of freedom, family and fullness. These were gifts God so desires to pour out on Adam and Eve, and every subsequent generation.  Every fifty years the jubilee was celebrated as the people of Israel basked in the bountiful mercy of God” (emphasis added).

It is my hope that we all take time from our busy lives to enjoy the spiritual benefits given to us by the Holy Father and the bishops through this Jubilee Year of Hope. By transforming our own hearts, minds, and souls to God’s design, created “in his image and likeness” (John 4:32-34), we can participate in transforming the culture of medicine, our families and the Catholic Medical Association.  Let’s make sure that this great year of favor doesn’t pass by leaving us unchanged.

I hope to see many of you at the Leadership Training Meeting (LTM) at the beautiful Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. This year’s LTM will be held June 27-29 and theme is “A Guild and State Director Workshop”. Drs. Jeremy Jones and Tom Miller have developed an outstanding curriculum for leadership and for strengthening the guilds. The LTM coincide with the the Medical Students and Residents Boot Camp. It is an opportunity to form friendships and arrange mentorship opportunities between students, residents and physicians, which is transformational.

I pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each of you, your families, and your guilds!

In Christ,

Michelle K. Stanford, M.D.

CMA President