Former Arkansan provides healing as a priest and doctor

Though he heard the call to service as a teenager, it took an 18-year journey of faith for former Little Rock resident Father Scott Binet to realize his vocations as a doctor, priest and member of the Order of St. Camillus. Today he is the director of the Camillian Task Force, ministering around the world in the wake of disaster.

Published: October 28, 2006

By Malea Hargett
Editor

Malea Hargett

Father Scott Binet speaks with Deacon Bill Hartmann after concelebrating Mass at his former home parish, Christ the King in Little Rock, on Sunday, Oct. 15.

Malea Hargett

Father Scott Binet speaks with Deacon Bill Hartmann after concelebrating Mass at his former home parish, Christ the King in Little Rock, on Sunday, Oct. 15.

Scott Binet first heard the Lord calling him to service following Mass at Christ the King Church in Little Rock when he was 16 years old.

It took another 18 years for him to fully realize he was meant to follow Christ as a spiritual healer and become a priest and as a physical healer and become a family physician. Father Binet recently returned to Little Rock to recount his story for former parishioners and describe his current work as the director of the Camillian Task Force, ministering around the world following natural and manmade disasters.

Father Binet, 43, moved to Little Rock in 1979 after living in Minneapolis and Syracuse, N.Y. While in high school, he was pondering a homily given by the pastor, Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert.

"I found myself one day after Mass on my knees praying before the crucifix," he said in an interview with Arkansas Catholic. "My prayer was, 'Jesus, I want to be like you.' What I heard in my spirit was, 'Serve.' It was a call to serve... I reiterated my desire to be like him. What I heard in my spirit was, 'Will you die for me?' ... And I said 'yes.'"

He followed his father's footsteps and entered Christian Brothers University (then known as Christian Brothers College) in Memphis to study pre-medicine.

Father Binet admits he never wanted to be a doctor. "It seemed like the thing to do," he said. "I knew that was where the spirit was leading me... but I was not ready to go."

After his college baseball career was sidelined because of an injury, Father Binet tried out for theater productions at CBC. He even earned a leading role in a play.

After graduating from college in 1985, he was accepted to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. He still wasn't convinced that he was supposed to be a doctor.

Instead, he made a bold move and went to New York City to try to be a professional actor and do some modeling.

"My vocation was not to be an actor. I didn't love it enough to be an actor," he said.

He had roles on two soap operas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live." When he was considered for a major role on "One Life to Live" in 1986, he said he was forced to examine if he really wanted to be an actor.

Once again the tug to go to medical school returned. In 1986 he moved back to Little Rock and entered UAMS. It wasn't until this third year of medical school that he felt God leading him to become a priest.

While caring for a patient who was grieving, he asked himself, "How do I want this patient to see me?"

"I said, 'As a doctor?' No. And it just came to me -- 'As Christ.'"

In a moment of desperation about the direction of his life in his last year of medical school in 1990, he said, "The Lord got me down on my knees. It was at that point I said, 'I am not fulfilled and I can't figure this out.'"

He finally agreed to God's calling to the priesthood or religious life, but he didn't know if he could integrate medicine into his ministry.

After graduating from medical school and completing his residency in Yonkers, N.Y. in 1993, he was accepted as a seminarian in the Diocese of Little Rock and later in the Archdiocese of New York, but he soon realized that being a priest/doctor is a difficult combination for most vocation directors to understand.

Finally while looking at a vocations guide in 1996, he learned about the Order of St. Camillus, which is dedicated to ministering to the poor and sick. In fact, 25 of its 1,200 members worldwide have medical degrees.

"I was really taken by the work that they do," he said. "After meeting the community, I really had to pinch myself. I experienced that same peace and joy that I had experienced in 1990 when I said yes to the Lord. I knew it was right."

During his formation from 1997 to 2003 and after his ordination in 2003, Father Binet has traveled the world to heal the sick physically and spiritually in addition to mastering six languages. He spent nearly three months in the Amazon following a priest-doctor from his order. He also has worked after natural disasters in Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti and the Philippines and manmade disasters in Kenya, Uganda and the Sudan.

From January to August 2005 he served in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where he set up a medical clinic following the 2004 tsunami, which killed 230,000 people. During that period he also spent time on the Indian Ocean island of Nias, which was affected by an earthquake as well.

As the director of the Camillian Task Force, he has spent the past 11 months traveling the United States promoting the group, seeking interested lay volunteers to help the CTF and raising money for the costly work.

He is currently stationed in Milwaukee, his order's North American headquarters. On Oct. 8 he accepted the Distinguished Alumnus Award at CBU in Memphis. He then traveled to Little Rock to reconnect with his former pastor and spiritual director, Msgr. Hebert, and visit his former parish. On Oct. 14-15 Father Binet spoke at all Masses at Christ the King Church.

Of the wide variety of tasks Father Binet does, he said celebrating Mass is his "greatest joy." He is proud to wear his clerical garb and large, red cross around his neck that identifies as him a Camillian priest.

But it isn't being a priest or doctor that he most identifies with.

"My primary identity since I am a religious is that I am a member of the Order of St. Camillus. I exercise being a Camillian by being a priest and a doctor. I can serve those who are sick spiritually as a priest. I can serve the sick physically as a physician. ... I am always a priest and I am always a doctor.

"All of our sacraments deal in a certain sense deal with healing. As a priest we deal with healing all the time.

"This is a journey of faith," he said. "It is being Christ Healer as much as possible in these different situations whether it is celebrating Mass, during the sacrament of reconciliation or as a doctor."

To find out more about the Camillian Task Force, visit http://www.ctfmercy.org or call (414) 464-8030.