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Abbey News
Father James Leads Students on an Annual Medical Mission Trip
Last year, our own Father James Raber, OSB led two medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic, one in September and one in March. Serving in clinics and providing essential medical support, groups of eight and sixteen Belmont Abbey students, including many enrolled in our Nursing program, took up the call to love and sacrifice by ministering to the needs of their Caribbean brothers and sisters.
By establishing this new Abbey tradition, Father continues the same legacy of service that inspires seniors to join the Benedictine Volunteer Corps (BVC) each year. While the BVC entails a nine month commitment, these intensive medical mission trips open additional life-changing service opportunities to even more Abbey students.
Read on to learn more about these medical missions, featured in a recent Catholic Register article:
Ignatian retreat campus in the Caribbean serves as hub for medical missions
By: Tom Tracy, OSV News
Originally Published in The Catholic Register
SANTIAGO DE LOS CABALLEROS, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
When Benedictine Father James Raber asked last year if he could bring three or four student volunteers along to an annual medical mission in the Caribbean he got a nice surprise.
“I thought it would be great if I could bring several Belmont Abbey (College) students here as part of a mission trip — and they offered me a dozen spots,” said Father Raber, chaplain at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.
“And one thing I absolutely love to do is see the students interact with the patients,” he added.
The priest and his students joined up with a larger U.S, medical volunteer delegation last year operating out of the expansive campus of the Institute for Latin American Concern, or ILAC, in Santiago de los Caballeros.
A four-decades old Catholic-affiliated retreat-style property founded in the 1970s by two Jesuit missionaries originally from Cuba, teams of volunteer medical specialists, surgeons, dentists and support staff integrate with local Mission ILAC staff and medical volunteers in their care for hundreds of patients in the context of Ignatian spirituality.
“It is a wonderful thing to be able to work with people who help with the mission: I am saying Mass for them, leading ecumenical reflections and hearing confessions often in the evening when there is some down time,” Father Raber told OSV News, adding that he enjoys being a priestly presence in the pediatric clinics and interacting with young families who have registered months in advance to see a medic.
“There are also people who are going to be going under for surgery who need anointing of the sick and that is offered as well,” the priest said.
Although the Belmont Abbey delegation only stayed less than a week, Mission ILAC operates year-round as a global gathering point for international medical volunteers and as a resource for often neglected rural northern reaches of the Dominican Republic and its proximity to Haiti’s border.
There are remote mountain villages with communities of Haitians living there without documents and other rural villages throughout the northwestern Dominican Republic. Consequently, Mission ILAC center coordinates medical outreach to those places where no governmental or private organization reaches.
Over the years, volunteer medics and students from Ivy League and other U.S. institutions have utilized the ILAC campus for Spanish-language courses, medical training and enrichment programs, including most notably Jesuit-run Creighton University, which earlier this year opened a 3,000-square-foot, high-tech classroom and communal space.
The Creighton facility will reportedly increase opportunities for its student engagement in research, economic development and environmental sustainability across the Dominican Republic’s communities where Creighton has health partnerships.
Student doctors, nurses and medics on overseas medical mission experiences often work alongside world-class medical professionals and are rewarded with hands-on experiences, cross-cultural patient interaction and career changing inspiration.
Katherine Calvet, a Florida resident and one of the Belmont Abbey College students who has made several mission trips to Santiago de los Caballeros, said ILAC helped her focus her educational decisions early on while still a freshman at Belmont.
“I thought it would be an opportunity to serve the people of the Dominican Republic and share my passion for helping others,” said Calvet, who is now an undergraduate at Florida State University.
Her trips to ILAC were in concert with the Miami-based Cuban Association of the Order of Malta, which makes twice annual ILAC missions providing outpatient surgeries, pediatrics, family medicine, cardiology, dentistry and more.
“I fell in love with medicine very quickly within the first two hours of working with one of the doctors and I definitely have passion for medicine now,” Calvet told OSV News. “In triage we saw very high blood pressures and very high blood glucose levels.”
One of the senior doctors helping staff the Malta-sponsored mission in 2025 was Dr. Grant Phillips, associate director of a residency program at Altoona Family Physicians Residency Program at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
“I’ve been coming here for about 10 or 15 years,” said Phillips, who participated in an end-of-day ecumenical debriefing at ILAC’s on-site chapel following a long day. He also trains student volunteers during his consultations.
“I have a lot of gratitude both to the patients — because they carry the burden of the disease — and the people who brought me down here and allowed me to get fulfillment by helping the people here. This is a life changing experience.”
Some of the medics will venture into the nearby mountain communities.
Mission ILAC maintains a network of community leader “cooperadores de salud” (“cooperators of health”), composed of men and women from their own rural communities who promote better healthcare access along with improvement of agricultural techniques as a way of maintaining rural community wellness and reducing mass migration to the cities.
It is now estimated that four-fifths of the Dominican population now live in one of several urban centers, creating a strain on infrastructure. Many others have left the country altogether in recent decades.
Making her 31st trip to ILAC with the Order of Malta was Dr. Jane Cohen, a primary care physician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and a veteran volunteer at ILAC who said she comes at her own expense.
“I have met people from all over the U.S. and all over the world who have improved my life and taught me things I couldn’t have learned elsewhere,” Cohen said.
Cohen makes a point of attending ILAC ecumenical sessions where she shares her experiences with colleagues. She expressed gratitude to her husband back home who allows her to take vacation time and even go off the grid into the village communities.
“I decided I wanted to go out into the campos three hours by car up a rickety mountain pathway to see people who either couldn’t get to us or needed our help there and they were so welcoming,” she said.
There were 56 people in that particular community and the medical team saw about half of them as patients. On a second day they stopped at two communities of Haitians, living there without documents.
“I was trying to teach some of the medical students to see the ‘progression of disease'” and not overreach for solutions, she said, noting that many patients in the U.S. are shuffled off to the emergency room or sent out for time-consuming testing.
“For years I was coming here speaking to other internal medicine doctors like myself who realized that our services are better rendered in the office preventing people from getting admitted to the hospital,” Cohen added.
Belmont Abbey College Names Michael S. Shanley as Inaugural Chief of Staff and Vice President of Board Affairs
Belmont Abbey College Names Michael S. Shanley as Inaugural Chief of Staff and Vice President of Board Affairs
Belmont, N.C. (August 5th, 2026) – Belmont Abbey College is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael S. Shanley as its inaugural Chief of Staff and Vice President of Board Affairs, a newly created executive leadership position established to strengthen institutional alignment, support the Office of the President, and enhance governance across the college. A retired U.S. Army Brigadier General, Shanley brings more than 30 years of executive leadership experience spanning military service, government, and the private sector to the College’s senior leadership team.
As Chief of Staff and Vice President of Board Affairs, Shanley serves as a principal advisor to President Dr. Jeffrey W. Talley and a trusted partner to the Board of Trustees. He leads the Office of the President, oversees executive operations, and coordinates strategic initiatives across the institution to strengthen alignment, governance, and execution while advancing Belmont Abbey College’s Catholic and Benedictine mission. The creation of this position reflects the college’s continued investment in strategic leadership and operational excellence as it advances its long-term mission and institutional priorities. He also oversees Board Affairs and serves as the primary liaison between the President and the Board of Trustees.
“Mike is an accomplished leader whose career has been defined by integrity, service, and a commitment to excellence,” said Dr. Jeffrey W. Talley, President of Belmont Abbey College. “His extensive experience leading complex organizations and advising senior leaders will be an invaluable asset to Belmont Abbey as we continue to advance our mission. We are thrilled to welcome Mike and his family to our community.”
“I am honored to join Belmont Abbey College in this new leadership role and become part of a community grounded in faith, academic excellence, and service,” said Shanley. “The college’s Catholic and Benedictine mission resonates deeply with me, and I look forward to working alongside Dr. Jeffrey W. Talley, the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, and students to help advance Belmont Abbey’s strategic priorities and continue building on its strong foundation.”
Prior to joining Belmont Abbey, Shanley served as the Commanding General of the 85th Army Reserve Support Command, leading an organization of more than 4,100 personnel with subordinate units across 25 states and managing a $30 million annual operating budget. He also served as Director of Corporate Development at Halvik, a government contractor specializing in information technology solutions and support.
Earlier in his career, Shanley served as Deputy Commanding Officer and Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army’s Innovation Command, where he synchronized enterprise operations and supported innovation and modernization efforts across the Army. Commissioned as an Army officer in 1996, he retired as a Brigadier General after a distinguished military career marked by leadership at every level, from platoon to division command.
Throughout his military and civilian careers, Shanley has built a reputation for aligning organizations around strategic priorities, fostering collaboration, and translating vision into action. His military decorations include two Legions of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, six Meritorious Service Medals, and numerous other awards and honors.
Shanley earned a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Business Administration from Syracuse University, a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Mike and his wife, Krista, have three children.
For more information about Belmont Abbey College, please visit www.belmontabbeycollege.edu.
About Belmont Abbey College: Founded in 1876, Belmont Abbey College is a private, Catholic baccalaureate and liberal arts institution. Our mission is to educate students in the liberal arts and sciences so that in all things God may be glorified. Guided by the Catholic intellectual tradition and the Benedictine spirit of prayer and learning, we welcome a diverse body of students and provide them with an education that will enable them to lead lives of integrity, to succeed professionally, to become responsible citizens, and to be a blessing to themselves and to others. Our beautiful and historic campus is conveniently located just 10 miles west of Charlotte, N.C., and is currently home to more than 1500 students. For more information, visit belmontabbeycollege.edu.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Sarah Bolton
P: 704-461-7016 E: sarahbolton@bac.edu
CaroMont Health Foundation Presents Ceremonial Grant Check
Yesterday, members of our Nursing Department were honored to receive the ceremonial check for the $73,526 grant awarded by the CaroMont Health Foundation. Representatives from the CaroMont Health Foundation and the City of Belmont joined us for this special presentation, celebrating our partnership to strengthen community cardiac emergency preparedness and advance nursing education. We are grateful to the CaroMont Health Foundation for investing in our students and in our community!
Looking at things in “monastic time”
Those of us here on the Belmont Abbey campus sometimes joke about “monastic time.” It’s a quip we’ve borrowed from the monks themselves, though it would be hard to imagine actually applying it to their faithful work, despite their good-humored self-deprecation. In the course of our teaching or administrative work, however, if some objective seems slow in approaching or a goal aims far in the future, we can always tease ourselves with the playfully applied truth: that this is just the monastic way. In an overarching, historical sense, the scale of Benedictine time responds to a 1500 year tradition, after all; its units are more properly centuries than days or weeks. But even on an individual scale, the Abbey monk lives his life in view of eternity.
To be clear, Benedictine monks absolutely get things done. One look at Belmont Abbey history shows dozens of visionary servant-leaders who built and sustained this college and community over the last 150 years, bringing it by the grace of God from two students and a few, old farm buildings to a thriving community of 1700+ and a campus full of beautiful, historic architecture. But in looking back at Abbey history, it’s important to remember that these men didn’t always see the fruits of their labors, which unfolded slowly across generations. They didn’t need to see what would come or know how long it would take. Being human, of course, they may have wondered, but they also drew strength and perspective from a community whose way of life, sense of priority, and attitude toward time look ever more radical by today’s standards.
In the monastery, the daily rhythms are steady and consistent, cultivating a faithful interior space in which to await the still, small voice so easy to miss in our urgent, polarized, and media-saturated world. Those of us outside the monastery are bombarded by a culture that believes everything should be immediate, gratifying, and accessible. And while there are many advantages to modern technology, it can all too quickly drown us in a bizarre cocktail of anxious complacency. Relative to the fragmentary whirl of contemporary life, a monk’s ordered balance of prayer and work, ora et labora, seems almost like slow motion – largely because the Benedictine looks to the eternal.
The structures of our daily lives might differ from a Benedictine monk’s – just as our particular callings are different from his — but something in the idea of monastic time remains necessary to all of us. The invitation to do faithfully the work and prayer of today, trusting to a scale of time and a divine plan that far exceed what we can see or predict, might be more explicit in the Benedictine life, but it belongs to each of us in our shared vocation as human beings. Eternity is not an abstraction unconnected with earthly life. The monks of Belmont Abbey live in its light while embracing, without contradiction, the paradox of stability in a particular time and place. Likewise, orienting ourselves toward eternity doesn’t detach us from our humanity but illuminates its dignity, echoing the reality of sacrament and the mystery of the Incarnation, the eternal Word made flesh.
Changing our perspective is not easy, and personally, I still have a long way to go. But I think in the end the key is, well… time. In the end, the time we give to God — in prayer or work or leisure — participates in eternity. And if we set aside even ten minutes each day with no other purpose than directing our attention to Him, our eternal home – if we sit in what is sometimes very uncomfortable and distracted quiet and just keep trying to turn our eyes back to Him – those moments can help to orient us. They can remind us that all time points toward its eternal source. That no moment is defined by itself alone. And that it is never our responsibility to worry about outcomes or timing. Every day the monks’ patient witness reminds us: just leave those to God.
