For advanced practice nurses Mary Kay Gawne and Cathlin Poronsky, a typical day can include everything from health presentations at meetings to unexpected trips to the emergency room.

Gawne and Poronsky work out of the Vicar for Priests office, and are tasked with supporting the health of active and retired priests in the archdiocese.

That means that, while they do not provide direct care, they talk with priests, assess their needs, connect them with health care providers and follow up to make sure the priests are making the calls and going to the appointments.

They also encourage priests to take their wellness seriously: The nurses  have written a cookbook with healthy recipes and offer cooking demonstrations and classes, and they remind priests of the importance of regular exercise and adequate sleep.

And they work with aging priests who may no longer be able to live on their own to help them find a suitable facility.

“It’s everything from, ‘Hey, I need to find a doctor,’ to, ‘Hey, I think I broke my foot, what do I do?’” said Gawne, who started in her position in 2019. “We will go with them to the ER or meet them there.”

When they do, priests are often very happy to see them, Gawne said, because they feel like they have someone who can listen to the doctors and nurses, help them understand what is going on and advocate for them.

“It’s sort of like, everyone has a friend or family member who is a nurse or in the medical field who, when they get scared, they call,” Gawne said.

Father Michael Foley, who has served as vicar for priests since July 1, 2023, said that a significant number of the roughly 280 retired priests have ongoing health issues, as do a number of active priests.

Poronsky, who came on board in 2022, said much of their work is with the retired priests.

Part of their job is encouraging priests, even active priests, to plan for their end-of-life care by designating a health care power of attorney and giving direction about what they want.

Doing all of that requires building relationships, which they do by going to priests’ meetings, the priest convocation and vicariate and deanery meetings.

Father Thomas May, pastor of St. Paul VI Parish, said it was at a Vicariate V meeting in January that he listened to Poronsky give a presentation on how to tell if you might need a hearing aid.

“I checked all the boxes,” May said. “After that meeting, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I think I need to do this.’ She was very encouraging on that. She gave me places to go to get my hearing tested. Then she checked to make sure I did it.”

May expected to pick up his new hearing aids in mid-April.

Part of the reason that interaction went so smoothly was that May was already familiar with the work Gawne and Poronsky do. Gawne helped find a suitable place for a retired pastor who could no longer live alone safely in a house on the property of a parish May led, he said.

“She went above and beyond,” he said. “She helped him pack his things up. She went with him to the facility and checked in with him almost daily. She really put herself into that.”

She also helped coordinate care for a priest classmate of May’s who was staying with him following a knee replacement, he said.

Retired Auxiliary Bishop Francis Kane said he has been impressed by the work of Gawne and Poronsky.

“It’s really about relationship,” said Kane, adding that he saw how they worked with Bishop Raymond Goedert before he died Dec. 9, 2023. “They are so dedicated. There have been times when Mary Kay stopped to see Bishop Goedert when he was very ill, and it was way after any reasonable work hours.”

During those visits, she would also check in with Bishop Kane and the other priests who live at the Cardinal’s Residence, he said.

Bishop Kane said it’s important for priests to have someone looking out for their health. He especially applauds the effort they have made to teach priests how to cook and eat healthier foods.

“There are a lot of guys, their cookbook is really a series of takeout menus,” Kane said. “It isn’t just elderly priests. All the priests have issues: a healthy diet, are they taking care of themselves, are they having a regular checkup?”

Gawne said some of the priests never learned to cook a healthy meal. Others plan to, but then something comes up and they never get around to it.

“We call it the ‘Oh, hell,’ diet,” Gawne said. “When it’s nine or ten o’clock and a meeting just ended and they’re passing a fast food place, and they say, ‘Oh, hell. Might as well.’”

Add to that the habit some parishioners have of dropping off meeting leftovers, often cookies or donuts and cake, at the rectory for the pastor, who these days is often living alone.

“I’d like the community of the Catholic Church to know what the priests lives are like,” Gawne said.

“They are human beings and need space to care for themselves,” Poronsky added.

That means supporting their health by offering nutritious food and understanding when they make time to rest and to exercise. It’s often difficult for priests to maintain regular schedule, with funerals scheduled only a few days ahead, anointings being needed immediately or parishioners seeking confession or just counsel.

While many priests have close relationships with siblings or other family members, for others, their closest family is their brother priests, Foley said. Poronsky and Gawne work with priests’ families when they can. They have facilitated health conversations between some priests and their families, but they also have had some of the tough conversations that many elderly people have with their own families, such as, for example, about when it’s time to stop driving.

Foley said the nurses’ efforts are paying dividends in terms of priests’ health and even financially. Last year, according to the Priests Health and Retirement, hospitalization costs for priests were down, a drop he attributes at least in part to more priests getting preventative care.

None of that would happen without Poronsky and Gawne’s efforts to reach out to priests before the priests realize they need them, Foley said, whether by offering blood pressure screenings or flu shots at a meeting or by hosting a cooking class.

May is equally impressed.

“They go above and beyond,” he said. “It really is a ministry.”