"Reframing" sponsorship

Health Progress, Jul/Aug 2001 by Grant, Mary Kathyrn

The Time Has Come to Make Sponsorship Itself a Ministry

Suppose those of us who serve Catholic health care were to begin to think of what we call "sponsorship" as a unique ministry within the church, and to view the role of sponsor as itself a calling? What might happen it we were to intentionally refocus questions concerning the issue in this way, conceptualizing sponsorship as a specialized ministry?

Catholic health care is faced with both problems and enormous opportunities concerning the future of sponsorship, the preferred model of sponsorship, and the identification and formation of the next generation of sponsors. We are in a time that can be both exhilarating and challenging, a time of possibility and a time of letting go. For many of us, this is both a moment of loss of what has been and a giving birth to something new. It is truly a Paschal moment.

Recall for a moment the origin of the terms "sponsor" and "sponsorship." It was as recently as the late 1960s and 1970s that these concepts began to be used. The earliest use by the Catholic health ministry of the "sponsoring body" concept seems to have occurred in 1968; the word "sponsorship" itself has been in popular use only since 1976.1 At that time, "sponsorship" was adopted to describe the relationship between a congregation and its institutional ministries-at a moment in time when this relationship was changing dramatically.

From the 1950s on, many congregations, responding to advice from canon lawyers, incorporated their institutional ministries as separate legal bodies, in order to avoid any potential civil action that otherwise might "pierce the corporate veil." Not only did the congregations create separate corporations for their hospitals, academies, colleges, and universities; they also established separate governing boards (sometimes including lay members) to govern the corporations. This structure erected a wall between the congregation and its institutional works.

Lacking a word to describe this changing relationship, congregations began to use the word "sponsorship." Congregational leaders, when acting in this role, were themselves sometimes referred to as "sponsors." (Because sponsors are juridic personalities, the individuals who represent them are perhaps better described as "sponsor agents.") However, the words "sponsor" and "sponsorship" do not have theological, civil, or canonical roots. As might be expected, because of this lack of precise definition, they have come to mean many different things.

In this article, I use the term "sponsorship" to describe the relationship within the church that situates the canonical responsibility of a juridic person for incorporated apostolic works that are part of a church entity.2 In this usage, all five components are critical: relationship, canonical responsibility, juridic person, incorporated apostolic works, and part of a church entity. Of particular interest are the notions "canonical responsibility" and "incorporated apostolic works." The first phrase differentiates sponsorship in this context from other usages of the term: sacramental sponsors, for example. The second phrase clarifies what is sponsored. Over the years, some confusion has arisen when individual members of religious institutes consider themselves to be sponsors even though they do not hold the canonical responsibility but are in reality members of the sponsoring body generally working within sponsored organizations. In addition, the concept of incorporated apostolic works distinguishes these formally organized ministries from such good works as shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens, and hospitality houses-which are usually not sponsored, incorporated apostolic works.

The 1970s, the decade following the Second Vatican Council, was also a time when many religious (in the United States and elsewhere) elected not to serve in institutional ministries, preferring more hands-on service directly with the poor and underserved. The convergence of these two forces-the creation of corporations, on one hand, and the exodus of religious from institutional service, on the other-created both the sponsorship concept and the need for a new lexicon to describe it. Thus the tendency, which persists to this day, to describe congregational leaders as "sponsors" rather than as sponsor agents. Both the concept and its accompanying terminology were born of necessity. Tasks such as exploring sponsorship's theological meaning and establishing qualifications for a sponsor representative were left for another time.

A UNIQUE FORM OF MINISTRY?

Perhaps now is the time to articulate a theology of sponsorship and to recognize sponsorship as a unique form of ministry. We would perceive the sponsor role differently if we were to, first, assign it to specific persons, and, second, recognize it as a specific ministerial calling. Sponsorship would then be seen as a unique responsibility, rather than as one attached to another role, namely congregational leadership or (less frequently) a special appointment. By "reframing" the sponsor role as a unique call, Catholic health care could open the door to a whole new way of thinking about sponsorship. It also would raise questions about how, for example, individuals might respond to that call, how they should prepare to minister in this role, how the rest of us in the ministry might create (or contribute to the creation of) a community of people sharing the responsibilities of sponsorship-and many other questions, as well.