ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS: JUNE 1999

• Cover Story
  • World Day of the Sick, February 11, 2000, is the focus for the millennium celebration for pastoral workers in health care throughout the world. Father Joe Driscoll discusses the NACC's participation in Jubilee 2000 and calls for celebration ideas.
  
  
• President's Report
  • Father Steve Ryan writes that chaplains live in a time of choice, and that they have the abilities to make the necessary changes to meet the spiritual care needs of a radically changed society as it moves into the 21st century. He believes chaplains are called upon to look, listen, learn, link, and most importantly to lead: "We are called not be followers, but leaders . . . we are called to be risk takers."
  
  
• National News
  • Sister Patricia Walsh, NACC National Secretary, lists the National Leadership Council Consensus Decisions from the National Conference, held in San Diego on April 25-26, 1999.
     
  • Vision editor Becky Evans retires in June after serving the NACC for 14 years as Publications Coordinator.
     
  • Steering Committee Summary Report (AAPC, ACPE, APC, NACC) – At the initial meeting, three goals were identified to recommend to each association's board for implementation.
     
  
  
• Executive Director's Column
  • In "Gathering Humbly Before the Hearth," Father Joe Driscoll describes the role of the chaplain as helping people reconcile their lives and come home to Christ.
  
  
• Heartbeat
  • Father Ken Heberlein challenges chaplains to overcome their feelings of discomfort when dealing with patients who are homosexual men and lesbian women in God's Call to Love Everyone.
  
  
• Special Features
  • Terry Becker describes her role as a chaplain with the American Red Cross Aviation Disaster Spiritual Care Task Force at the Amtrak train wreck in Bourbonnais, Illinois.
     
  • Sister Virginia Marie Derk, SSCM, shares reflections of the Pastoral Care Team who ministered to the Amtrak train wreck victims at Provena St. Mary's Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois.
     
  • Chaplain Jerry Kaelin of the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, writes about the chaplain mentor program for first-year medical students at Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine.
     
  
  
• Regional Happenings
  • Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago held a dedication and blessing ceremony to open its new Alice Kilgallon Partner Learning Resource Center.
     
  • Region V will hold a Mini Convention in September 1999 on the "Wellsprings of Spirituality."
  
  
• Horizons: Book Reviews
  • John Gilman, a chaplain at Scripps Mercy Hospital and CPE Supervisor at The Center for Urban Ministry in San Diego, reviews three books on dying well: Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lessons by Mitch Albom; Dying Well: Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life by Ira Byock; and The Measure of Our Days: New Beginnings at Life's End by Jerome Groopman.
  
  
• What's Coming in Future Issues
  • The Special Section "Windows onto the World: Spiritual Care International" wil appear in the August/September issue instead of the July issue. The deadline is Monday, June 28, 1999. We invite members to submit articles and accompanying photographs from their experience of spiritual care ministry in different cultures.