New Year Brings Hope and Celebrations
We hope you enjoyed the Christmas holidays and were able to reflect on the miracle of the Incarnation. Emmanuel—God is with us! Let’s carry that joy forward through the winter months.
Prayer intentions
Thank you to those of you who pledged to pray weekly for religious vocations of our Archdiocese. This is one of our primary prayer intentions for this year. If you’d like to make a commitment to pray with us, please go to neumannguild.org and look under Events.
- Stanley Wojciechowski, father of former Guild president Brian, passed away in December.
- John and Mary Kate Nawn welcomed a new baby, Catherine Felicity, recently. We send them our prayers and congratulations.
- Ellen Betts requests our prayers as she undergoes treatment for a serious health condition.
New Board members—and thank you to our outgoing Board members
We are grateful to Bryan Stone, DO and Katelyn Bradley, MD who have generously served the St. John Neumann Guild Board of Directors over the past few years. Kate had also served as the Resident Representative to the Board prior to entering practice.
We also want to thank med student reps Jocelyn Chau and Faith Kean, who will be graduating this year.
Welcome to Valerie Godzieba, CRNP, Tucker Brown, MD, and med student Zoe Barinaga, who have agreed to serve on the Board starting this month. Val is Global Employee Health Director and Nurse Practitioner for Merck and Company; Tucker is the Director of Development for FACTS About Fertility, a non-profit dedicated to equipping medical professionals to provide the reproductive care their patients deserve. Zoe is a 2nd year student at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. See more about Val, Tucker, and Zoe on our website under the About tab.
Valerie Godzieba
Tucker Brown
Zoe Barinaga
Membership Renewal/Dues
We rely on your support to advance our mission. If you haven’t yet paid your dues for 2026, please click the button below.
We encourage everyone to register or renew their membership. For those who are not obligated to pay dues, we ask that you consider supporting our Guild with a generous donation.
| Professional Category | Dues/Annual Contribution |
|---|---|
| Life Member or Fully Retired | Free will gift |
| Physician/Dentist | $128 |
| Resident or Fellow in Training NP/PA • Pharmacist • PT/OT • Counselor (PhD level) |
$75 |
| Nurse • Counselor • Ethicist • Dietician (Bachelors/Masters level) | $60 |
| Other Allied Health Professionals & Friends | $35 |
| Health professional student | Free will gift |
| Clergy/Religious | Free will gift |
We’ve added new benefits for our members, including:
- access to the National Catholic Bioethics Center publications and resources,
- consultants for questions of ethics and conscience, and
- the rollout of a special “classified ad” page on our website to support members looking for “good help.”
Local Holy Year Pilgrimages Mass and Celebrating St. John Neumann’s Feast Day
St. John Neumann Guild members and area medical students participated in a local Pilgrimage for the Holy Year, attending Mass at the Shrine of St. Rita in South Philadelphia on the 3rd Sunday of Advent and Mass in honor of our patron St. John Neumann on Sunday, January 4th. These Basilicas and Shrines are beautiful sacred spaces and worth visiting! Our Archdiocese is fortunate to have many, including the Cathedral Basilica with the Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Germantown, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Central Bucks County. Think about visiting one of these near you!
Mass in honor of St. John Neumann at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia
SJN student pilgrimage group at St. Rita’s Shrine with their “Pilgrim Passports” with Dr. Carolyn Felix and Ellen Betz
Carolyn Felix, Bob Motley, Ellen Betz. Missing Dr. Maria Demario who was assisting a woman who had become ill at the Shrine.
PA Legislative update
A handful of Pennsylvania Catholic Medical Association Guild Presidents and our Regional Director Deacon Bruno Schettini met with a representative of the PA Catholic Conference at the end of October and again this month to discuss the legislative landscape in PA. Of note, several pro-abortion bills and a handful that target pregnancy resource centers (largely due to misinformation about their operations) have been drafted.
It was helpful to gain insight into the legislative process, and to learn how the PA Catholic Conference works with both sides of aisle to support life across an array of issues including abortion, human trafficking, and school choice. For me, the biggest lesson learned is not just to write to your legislator from time to time but to make an appointment, meet face-to-face and develop a relationship that will help inform–and sometimes identify issues where there is common ground for support. As an example, a legislator was recently invited by a constituent to visit their local pregnancy center in person. The legislator discovered that the pregnancy center provides valuable support to women in many ways without coercing them about their pregnancies. That led to a change of heart by the legislator.
Coming next issue
Later this month, we’ll feature another section of our newly redesigned website, coming events, and a brief financial review of 2025.
