Detroit — “They say there are no atheists in foxholes. Maybe there are no atheists on operating tables.” Ray Guarendi, a clinical psychologist, was emceeing a first (sold-out) fundraising dinner for a new medical clinic for women and their children. He was responding to Sister Dede Byrne, a medical doctor and religious sister, who was explaining that when she — in a white habit — treats patients, she’s sure to lovingly treat the whole person, body, mind, and soul. For example: If she’s treating a Catholic couple living together outside of marriage and one of them needs to go under anesthesia for a surgery — even if relatively minor — she will write a prescription for the Sacrament of Confession. A nun can get away with that. But it needs to be more than her offering such spiritually healing opportunities.

Heart of Christ Clinic is the new mission here. It’s cutting-edge medicine meant to treat the whole person. During a panel, Dr. Kristin Collier, an assistant professor of medicine at University of Michigan Medical School, cites a leader in palliative care who notes the real impact that unaddressed spiritual pain can have on pain-controlling medical care at the end of life. Attracting women of all ages, the clinic aims to help with healing well before the final season of life.

Being pro-life, Heart of Christ will probably reduce abortions in Detroit, in a state whose governor militantly insists on the need for abortion. But to reduce the clinic’s existence to abortion is to misunderstand. “Lower-income women do not get prenatal care,” Lisa Knysz emphasizes from her experience. That shouldn’t be.

The clinic expects to see its first patients later this fall. Knysz, who has worked chiefly in medical administration — a necessary component of the newly launched endeavor — talks about the disenfranchised and why the clinic staff needs to be all-hands-on-deck about the mission. You don’t have to be Catholic or Christian, but you need to understand the power of the Beatitudes. A patient might not be completely forthcoming about her alarmingly dramatic weight loss, in one example Knysz gives. In a casual conversation with a staff member, the woman had admitted that her food stamps had been cut off and she’d been saving what food she could get for the kids. Staff were not only able to help with food for the family; they also helped her reapply for food stamps.

That’s the kind of whole-person support that patients will receive at Heart of Christ. It’s a family practice, and if Mom needs to be there for a few hours with her five kids, there will be healthy snacks, tutoring, mentoring, and arts and crafts as the clinic develops. And when you walk in, the first thing you see is a chapel, so no one will be afraid to pray (including asking for prayer), as might be the case at a federally qualified health center. And they expect that some of the patients they’ll attract will be women looking for Catholic care.

The clinic is in a renovated (paid for by two donors), repurposed convent on the grounds of the Basilica of Ste. Anne de Detroit. As churches and convents close — a reality around the country, especially in urban areas — the possibility for more Heart of Christ clinics (and ones modeled on them) is cause for optimism. Maternity and elder-care homes and even combinations of those are also possible.

All too often, abortion gets mired in politics and caricatures. Pregnant women and mothers of children of all ages — especially women who are alone, but not exclusively — must know that Catholics who adhere to Church teaching on life and sexual morality are in the business of loving, not judging. Knysz describes herself as the “captain of the culture” at the clinic, nurturing an environment that “wraps the healing love of Christ around every person who walks into this clinic.”

At Heart of Christ, doctors are going to spend more time with patients, and personnel will be bought into the mission — which will change everything, since the pressure will be not to move on but to provide full-service, loving care. As Heart of Christ is getting off the ground in Detroit, there are already preliminary plans for Lansing next and a longer-term plan for a clinic in each of the seven Catholic dioceses in the state. Coming from New York to take a look, I’m not alone in praying that there’s a national outreach sooner rather than later.

And yet, it’s not up to Heart of Christ alone. Creative, excellent efforts to inundate women and families with care and love must be a priority. I think of my friends at the Sancta Familia Center for Integrative Medicine, another Catholic medical clinic run not by the Church itself but by laypeople, in the Columbus area. It specializes in children with all kinds of often mysterious autoimmune disorders — because we care for children for life, not just until they are born, as is often suggested to dismiss the pro-life cause. Our miserable politics will never get better on these issues until women are inundated with options such as Heart of Christ.

Stopping by a local parish for Mass, I see a statue in the parish hall of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who came as a missionary from Italy to establish schools and orphanages and other care for immigrants. The Heart of Christ witness is a new kind of missionary service with professionals taking the lead. (And staff will not be surprised to have a healthy but not exclusive immigrant clientele.)

The hope is that word will get out that it’s excellent Catholic care, that all people from all economic brackets will seek out the center and not just happen upon it in crisis, perhaps outside an abortion clinic. That may just be healing in and of itself. To have noninstitutional, personalized, human encounters in medicine is still possible. And, rather than trying to play God, to be not afraid to let God in.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.