Monica Dodds, who spoke in Sacramento recently, encourages Catholics to care for elderly parents with love and respect and to incorporate tenets of Catholic spirituality.

When Monica Dodds held court for more than 50 members of the Catholic Professional and Business Breakfast Club recently at Sacramento’s Hilton Arden West Hotel, the message was equal parts obvious and powerful: You are not alone.

The care-minded author was in Sacramento promoting her organization, Friends of St. John the Caregiver. The topic of discussion, “Caring For Your Aging Parents,” drew a crowd hopeful on learning the intricacies of Catholic-inspired care for an elderly mom and dad.

“Remember there are plenty of other caregivers out there,” she told the crowd. “The Lord is always with us in all the challenges we’re facing. We’re not alone in the challenges and hardships we go though.”

Dodds is an authority on the subject. She and husband Bill co-authored “A Catholic Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents” (Loyola Press, 2006) soon after she began her non-profit organization. She spreads her message at speaking engagements all over the country.

She’s spent more than 15 years in the field of social work. She was a program manager for both a local Meals on Wheels and a senior center in her native state of Washington.

Dodds and her husband also have a syndicated column for the Catholic News Service. They recently appeared on a national Catholic radio show together.

“Through my work,” she said, “I’ve found there are three basic tenets to Catholic caregiving.”
She said that Catholic caregiving involves love and respect, is explicitly pro-life (euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are not allowed) and contains a unique spirituality. Dodds harkened back to St. John himself, who unselfishly stood by Mary following the Immaculate Conception and beyond.

Dodds’ calling began when she was a senior in high school, when her nearby grandparents’ health condition shook her into action. The combination of her grandfather’s bone cancer and her grandmother’s poor eyesight meant that she and sister took turns sleeping over at their house. When the pain of grandpa’s bone cancer kept him awake, it was up to either her or Sharon to place a call to her father — who would come over with a shot of morphine.

Years later, she waited until her children finished grade school before embarking on her actual career. First came a degree in social welfare from the University of Washington in Seattle. Then came her work with the elderly, where she instituted foreign language instruction and driftwood sculpting as a program manager for a senior activities center.

Bill Dodds was editor of The Catholic Northwest Progress, newspaper of the Archdiocee of Seattle, before becoming a freelance writer around the time his wife entered college. His book, “The Encyclopedia of Mary,” came out last year.

“I got to do it all,” Monica Dodds said. “The circumstances of everything are such tremendous things for our kids. They’re much closer with their dad than a lot of kids.”

Dodds’ appearance in Sacramento came three weeks after the death of her aunt, Flora.
“I think that caregivers are not alone,” she said. “We want to put in the spirituality of caregiving. We’ve been asked to put in that role, and we accept that.”

Copyright © 2008 Diocese of Sacramento - All Rights Reserved