I am Fr. Lewis Gabriel, a Catholic priest and Superior General of the Canons Regular of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (CRSHJ), a non-profit religious institute incorporated in England and Wales, based in Durham.

Our Canons Regular live among the people they serve — integrated in their communities, following the Oratorian model of St. Philip Neri: friendship, presence, and personal encounter. We go to where people are.

And there is nowhere people need us more than in a hospital ward or a hospice room.

Our vision is simple: no one should face serious illness, death, or grief without access to pastoral companionship and the sacraments of the Church. We will deploy trained, vetted, and ordained Canons Regular as chaplains to hospitals and hospices — offering the Sacrament of the Sick, Reconciliation, the Eucharist, and compassionate presence to patients, the dying, and their families, regardless of background.

Funding will sustain our clergy full time, freeing them entirely from financial constraints so they can dedicate the whole of their working lives to visiting hospitals and hospices, supporting patients, the dying, and the families walking alongside them. No divided attention. No competing pressures. Just presence.

We do not count years. We do not turn anyone away. We simply show up.