How does faith intersect with disability?
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
By Tom Sheridan and Liz Quirin |Catholic News Service
This edition of Viewpoints looks at the question: How does faith intersect with disability? Tom Sheridan, former editor of the Catholic New World, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and a deacon ordained for the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., notes that disability begets a poverty of human dignity. Liz Quirin, editor of The Messenger, newspaper of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., says Catholics have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome.
Disabilities beget a poverty of human dignity
By Tom Sheridan
That man in a wheelchair just off the Wal-Mart parking lot? The one cadging spare change from passersby? He's disabled.
See that guy over there, the one with a prosthetic leg? He left part of his body on a bloody field in Afghanistan. He's disabled.
What about the woman making her way through the grocery store on an electric scooter? She has multiple sclerosis. She's disabled.
Those stories -- and more -- are all around us, if we care to look. But too often we turn our heads. Twenty percent of Americans say they have a disability of some sort. Twelve percent have mobility problems. But not all disabilities are the same: The next most common is disability in thinking and/or memory, followed by needing help managing day-to-day living, vision and self-care, according to a report.
Those numbers come from a recent federal survey marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, legislation that has changed the lives of millions of people for the better.
And yes, there's a faith dimension to all this. Besides, I've got a personal connection. I have a disability.
Even if you failed to notice the large hearing aids behind each of my ears, you would quickly recognize the problem in conversation. My hearing started to go south at least 25 years ago and has worsened in the past 10. Thank God I'm retired because I could no longer accurately interview people or attend meetings of large groups of people and get the information correct, both staples of journalism, my chosen career.
That I was the boss for the final decade of my professional career probably saved me: My phone had a volume adjustment and I could expect staff to repeat things.
My hearing deficit has helped me recognize some essential truths about all disabilities. They can be isolating, frustrating, relationship-harming. Disabilities disconnect people from the world.
And yet, disabilities -- and how we react to those with them -- are an opportunity to reflect the Gospel.
It's no coincidence that Pope Francis seems determined to seek out -- or attract -- disabled people wherever he goes, often stopping to embrace or kiss them. That connects with this pope's overarching mission: challenging poverty.
Disability is poverty. Many of the disabled in today's society are poor, since disability can hinder earning a living. When I've helped out at various soup kitchens there is always a much higher percentage of disabled clients -- physical or emotional -- than at a local restaurant. But disabilities can beget another sort of poverty: a poverty of dignity.
Disability is isolating. It steals relationship. The disabled are too often ostracized from sharing in the benefits of society. Such discrimination is hardly Christ-like.
Combatting poverty and isolation are two of the thrusts of the church's social gospel, and recurrent themes of a pope who recognizes that the church must return to its roots of strengthening the connection between people while assuring that human dignity is offered to all.
For the church, disabilities are part of the continuum of life issues. The disabled deserve the same human dignity that directs the church to combat abortion, assisted suicide, capital punishment and more.
In 2014, speaking to the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis included people with disabilities in the church's efforts to support the dignity of life. "This is the Gospel of life," he said.
Those with disabilities offer us a glimmer of divine truth: It's not the strongest among us who forge the links that create relationship. It's the weakest and most vulnerable who connect us. How we treat them determines our success as community and reflects how we understand God.
Reaching out in love to all of God's people
By Liz Quirin
We couldn't see this beautiful girl's disability until she took her own life and we heard in the homily at her funeral that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Her struggles to defeat the demons that raged within her could not be detected by anyone meeting her or speaking with her in very casual meetings. Her family suffered with her, trying to protect and care for her as she spiraled away from them and toward an irreversible conclusion: death by suicide.
Most of the time when we speak about "people with disabilities" we refer to those with physical disabilities, and they and their families have many obstacles to navigate in daily living as well as challenges not only in practicing but also fully participating in the Catholic faith.
Consider the person who would like to be a lector or extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and the sanctuary has steps. If that person uses a wheelchair or has difficulty managing steps, that person may not be able to lector or distribute Communion without some accommodation. Hopefully, a parish could and would immediately overcome that challenge and provide an opportunity to everyone in the community who wanted to take on a liturgical role.
People in a parish might not recognize someone in their midst with a mental disability because we can't always see the disability. One parent I know with a child with a mental disability told me she wished her daughter had something others could see. "It would just make things easier," she said.
Families are sometimes reluctant to share their stories when a child or parent has a disorder that is classified as a mental disability because they are embarrassed or want to keep their information private. We have to respect their privacy but somehow let them know that we want to support them in whatever way we can. It's tricky balancing that concern and a family's right or need for privacy.
How would we feel if we grew up knowing our mother is clinically depressed or suffering from schizophrenia? I might not want to bring my friends home after school to do homework or play or participate in activities for fear that someone would find out. When we are growing up, we don't want to stand out from the crowd, and keeping family secrets are the best way to fit in.
Where does the church stand on issues of mental illness? In a 1978 pastoral statement, the U.S. bishops said: "People with disabilities are not looking for pity. They seek to serve the community and to enjoy their full baptismal rights as members of the church. Our interaction with them can and should be an affirmation of our faith. There can be no separate church for people with disabilities. We are one flock that follows a single shepherd."
Those are wonderful words, good to use as our guide, but things don't always work out that way when "the rubber meets the road" in parish life. It just isn't easy to make major adjustments for people with disabilities, perhaps putting in ramps for folks in wheelchairs, changing the rules so lectors don't have to walk up five steps to deliver a reading, but these are necessary adjustments so that we can be "one flock."
However, when we have someone with mental disabilities or young people with special needs, the accommodations are much more difficult. How do you prepare a child with mental disabilities to receive the sacraments? Some dioceses have adapted, adjusted and ministered to these special people in wonderful ways, crafting materials to fit the needs of the person instead of trying to mold the person to the materials.
We have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome, including those families that deal with monumental struggles to bring the message of the Gospel to each person as a member of the body of Christ.
That man in a wheelchair just off the Wal-Mart parking lot? The one cadging spare change from passersby? He's disabled.
See that guy over there, the one with a prosthetic leg? He left part of his body on a bloody field in Afghanistan. He's disabled.
What about the woman making her way through the grocery store on an electric scooter? She has multiple sclerosis. She's disabled.
Those stories -- and more -- are all around us, if we care to look. But too often we turn our heads. Twenty percent of Americans say they have a disability of some sort. Twelve percent have mobility problems. But not all disabilities are the same: The next most common is disability in thinking and/or memory, followed by needing help managing day-to-day living, vision and self-care, according to a report.
Those numbers come from a recent federal survey marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, legislation that has changed the lives of millions of people for the better.
And yes, there's a faith dimension to all this. Besides, I've got a personal connection. I have a disability.
Even if you failed to notice the large hearing aids behind each of my ears, you would quickly recognize the problem in conversation. My hearing started to go south at least 25 years ago and has worsened in the past 10. Thank God I'm retired because I could no longer accurately interview people or attend meetings of large groups of people and get the information correct, both staples of journalism, my chosen career.
That I was the boss for the final decade of my professional career probably saved me: My phone had a volume adjustment and I could expect staff to repeat things.
My hearing deficit has helped me recognize some essential truths about all disabilities. They can be isolating, frustrating, relationship-harming. Disabilities disconnect people from the world.
And yet, disabilities -- and how we react to those with them -- are an opportunity to reflect the Gospel.
It's no coincidence that Pope Francis seems determined to seek out -- or attract -- disabled people wherever he goes, often stopping to embrace or kiss them. That connects with this pope's overarching mission: challenging poverty.
Disability is poverty. Many of the disabled in today's society are poor, since disability can hinder earning a living. When I've helped out at various soup kitchens there is always a much higher percentage of disabled clients -- physical or emotional -- than at a local restaurant. But disabilities can beget another sort of poverty: a poverty of dignity.
Disability is isolating. It steals relationship. The disabled are too often ostracized from sharing in the benefits of society. Such discrimination is hardly Christ-like.
Combatting poverty and isolation are two of the thrusts of the church's social gospel, and recurrent themes of a pope who recognizes that the church must return to its roots of strengthening the connection between people while assuring that human dignity is offered to all.
For the church, disabilities are part of the continuum of life issues. The disabled deserve the same human dignity that directs the church to combat abortion, assisted suicide, capital punishment and more.
In 2014, speaking to the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis included people with disabilities in the church's efforts to support the dignity of life. "This is the Gospel of life," he said.
Those with disabilities offer us a glimmer of divine truth: It's not the strongest among us who forge the links that create relationship. It's the weakest and most vulnerable who connect us. How we treat them determines our success as community and reflects how we understand God.
--- Reaching out in love to all of God's people By Liz Quirin
We couldn't see this beautiful girl's disability until she took her own life and we heard in the homily at her funeral that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Her struggles to defeat the demons that raged within her could not be detected by anyone meeting her or speaking with her in very casual meetings. Her family suffered with her, trying to protect and care for her as she spiraled away from them and toward an irreversible conclusion: death by suicide.
Most of the time when we speak about "people with disabilities" we refer to those with physical disabilities, and they and their families have many obstacles to navigate in daily living as well as challenges not only in practicing but also fully participating in the Catholic faith.
Consider the person who would like to be a lector or extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and the sanctuary has steps. If that person uses a wheelchair or has difficulty managing steps, that person may not be able to lector or distribute Communion without some accommodation. Hopefully, a parish could and would immediately overcome that challenge and provide an opportunity to everyone in the community who wanted to take on a liturgical role.
People in a parish might not recognize someone in their midst with a mental disability because we can't always see the disability. One parent I know with a child with a mental disability told me she wished her daughter had something others could see. "It would just make things easier," she said.
Families are sometimes reluctant to share their stories when a child or parent has a disorder that is classified as a mental disability because they are embarrassed or want to keep their information private. We have to respect their privacy but somehow let them know that we want to support them in whatever way we can. It's tricky balancing that concern and a family's right or need for privacy.
How would we feel if we grew up knowing our mother is clinically depressed or suffering from schizophrenia? I might not want to bring my friends home after school to do homework or play or participate in activities for fear that someone would find out. When we are growing up, we don't want to stand out from the crowd, and keeping family secrets are the best way to fit in.
Where does the church stand on issues of mental illness? In a 1978 pastoral statement, the U.S. bishops said: "People with disabilities are not looking for pity. They seek to serve the community and to enjoy their full baptismal rights as members of the church. Our interaction with them can and should be an affirmation of our faith. There can be no separate church for people with disabilities. We are one flock that follows a single shepherd."
Those are wonderful words, good to use as our guide, but things don't always work out that way when "the rubber meets the road" in parish life. It just isn't easy to make major adjustments for people with disabilities, perhaps putting in ramps for folks in wheelchairs, changing the rules so lectors don't have to walk up five steps to deliver a reading, but these are necessary adjustments so that we can be "one flock."
However, when we have someone with mental disabilities or young people with special needs, the accommodations are much more difficult. How do you prepare a child with mental disabilities to receive the sacraments? Some dioceses have adapted, adjusted and ministered to these special people in wonderful ways, crafting materials to fit the needs of the person instead of trying to mold the person to the materials.
We have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome, including those families that deal with monumental struggles to bring the message of the Gospel to each person as a member of the body of Christ.
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By Tom Sheridan and Liz Quirin |Catholic News Service
This edition of Viewpoints looks at the question: How does faith intersect with disability? Tom Sheridan, former editor of the Catholic New World, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and a deacon ordained for the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., notes that disability begets a poverty of human dignity. Liz Quirin, editor of The Messenger, newspaper of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., says Catholics have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome.
Disabilities beget a poverty of human dignity
By Tom Sheridan
That man in a wheelchair just off the Wal-Mart parking lot? The one cadging spare change from passersby? He's disabled.
See that guy over there, the one with a prosthetic leg? He left part of his body on a bloody field in Afghanistan. He's disabled.
What about the woman making her way through the grocery store on an electric scooter? She has multiple sclerosis. She's disabled.
Those stories -- and more -- are all around us, if we care to look. But too often we turn our heads. Twenty percent of Americans say they have a disability of some sort. Twelve percent have mobility problems. But not all disabilities are the same: The next most common is disability in thinking and/or memory, followed by needing help managing day-to-day living, vision and self-care, according to a report.
Those numbers come from a recent federal survey marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, legislation that has changed the lives of millions of people for the better.
And yes, there's a faith dimension to all this. Besides, I've got a personal connection. I have a disability.
Even if you failed to notice the large hearing aids behind each of my ears, you would quickly recognize the problem in conversation. My hearing started to go south at least 25 years ago and has worsened in the past 10. Thank God I'm retired because I could no longer accurately interview people or attend meetings of large groups of people and get the information correct, both staples of journalism, my chosen career.
That I was the boss for the final decade of my professional career probably saved me: My phone had a volume adjustment and I could expect staff to repeat things.
My hearing deficit has helped me recognize some essential truths about all disabilities. They can be isolating, frustrating, relationship-harming. Disabilities disconnect people from the world.
And yet, disabilities -- and how we react to those with them -- are an opportunity to reflect the Gospel.
It's no coincidence that Pope Francis seems determined to seek out -- or attract -- disabled people wherever he goes, often stopping to embrace or kiss them. That connects with this pope's overarching mission: challenging poverty.
Disability is poverty. Many of the disabled in today's society are poor, since disability can hinder earning a living. When I've helped out at various soup kitchens there is always a much higher percentage of disabled clients -- physical or emotional -- than at a local restaurant. But disabilities can beget another sort of poverty: a poverty of dignity.
Disability is isolating. It steals relationship. The disabled are too often ostracized from sharing in the benefits of society. Such discrimination is hardly Christ-like.
Combatting poverty and isolation are two of the thrusts of the church's social gospel, and recurrent themes of a pope who recognizes that the church must return to its roots of strengthening the connection between people while assuring that human dignity is offered to all.
For the church, disabilities are part of the continuum of life issues. The disabled deserve the same human dignity that directs the church to combat abortion, assisted suicide, capital punishment and more.
In 2014, speaking to the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis included people with disabilities in the church's efforts to support the dignity of life. "This is the Gospel of life," he said.
Those with disabilities offer us a glimmer of divine truth: It's not the strongest among us who forge the links that create relationship. It's the weakest and most vulnerable who connect us. How we treat them determines our success as community and reflects how we understand God.
Reaching out in love to all of God's people
By Liz Quirin
We couldn't see this beautiful girl's disability until she took her own life and we heard in the homily at her funeral that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Her struggles to defeat the demons that raged within her could not be detected by anyone meeting her or speaking with her in very casual meetings. Her family suffered with her, trying to protect and care for her as she spiraled away from them and toward an irreversible conclusion: death by suicide.
Most of the time when we speak about "people with disabilities" we refer to those with physical disabilities, and they and their families have many obstacles to navigate in daily living as well as challenges not only in practicing but also fully participating in the Catholic faith.
Consider the person who would like to be a lector or extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and the sanctuary has steps. If that person uses a wheelchair or has difficulty managing steps, that person may not be able to lector or distribute Communion without some accommodation. Hopefully, a parish could and would immediately overcome that challenge and provide an opportunity to everyone in the community who wanted to take on a liturgical role.
People in a parish might not recognize someone in their midst with a mental disability because we can't always see the disability. One parent I know with a child with a mental disability told me she wished her daughter had something others could see. "It would just make things easier," she said.
Families are sometimes reluctant to share their stories when a child or parent has a disorder that is classified as a mental disability because they are embarrassed or want to keep their information private. We have to respect their privacy but somehow let them know that we want to support them in whatever way we can. It's tricky balancing that concern and a family's right or need for privacy.
How would we feel if we grew up knowing our mother is clinically depressed or suffering from schizophrenia? I might not want to bring my friends home after school to do homework or play or participate in activities for fear that someone would find out. When we are growing up, we don't want to stand out from the crowd, and keeping family secrets are the best way to fit in.
Where does the church stand on issues of mental illness? In a 1978 pastoral statement, the U.S. bishops said: "People with disabilities are not looking for pity. They seek to serve the community and to enjoy their full baptismal rights as members of the church. Our interaction with them can and should be an affirmation of our faith. There can be no separate church for people with disabilities. We are one flock that follows a single shepherd."
Those are wonderful words, good to use as our guide, but things don't always work out that way when "the rubber meets the road" in parish life. It just isn't easy to make major adjustments for people with disabilities, perhaps putting in ramps for folks in wheelchairs, changing the rules so lectors don't have to walk up five steps to deliver a reading, but these are necessary adjustments so that we can be "one flock."
However, when we have someone with mental disabilities or young people with special needs, the accommodations are much more difficult. How do you prepare a child with mental disabilities to receive the sacraments? Some dioceses have adapted, adjusted and ministered to these special people in wonderful ways, crafting materials to fit the needs of the person instead of trying to mold the person to the materials.
We have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome, including those families that deal with monumental struggles to bring the message of the Gospel to each person as a member of the body of Christ.
That man in a wheelchair just off the Wal-Mart parking lot? The one cadging spare change from passersby? He's disabled.
See that guy over there, the one with a prosthetic leg? He left part of his body on a bloody field in Afghanistan. He's disabled.
What about the woman making her way through the grocery store on an electric scooter? She has multiple sclerosis. She's disabled.
Those stories -- and more -- are all around us, if we care to look. But too often we turn our heads. Twenty percent of Americans say they have a disability of some sort. Twelve percent have mobility problems. But not all disabilities are the same: The next most common is disability in thinking and/or memory, followed by needing help managing day-to-day living, vision and self-care, according to a report.
Those numbers come from a recent federal survey marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, legislation that has changed the lives of millions of people for the better.
And yes, there's a faith dimension to all this. Besides, I've got a personal connection. I have a disability.
Even if you failed to notice the large hearing aids behind each of my ears, you would quickly recognize the problem in conversation. My hearing started to go south at least 25 years ago and has worsened in the past 10. Thank God I'm retired because I could no longer accurately interview people or attend meetings of large groups of people and get the information correct, both staples of journalism, my chosen career.
That I was the boss for the final decade of my professional career probably saved me: My phone had a volume adjustment and I could expect staff to repeat things.
My hearing deficit has helped me recognize some essential truths about all disabilities. They can be isolating, frustrating, relationship-harming. Disabilities disconnect people from the world.
And yet, disabilities -- and how we react to those with them -- are an opportunity to reflect the Gospel.
It's no coincidence that Pope Francis seems determined to seek out -- or attract -- disabled people wherever he goes, often stopping to embrace or kiss them. That connects with this pope's overarching mission: challenging poverty.
Disability is poverty. Many of the disabled in today's society are poor, since disability can hinder earning a living. When I've helped out at various soup kitchens there is always a much higher percentage of disabled clients -- physical or emotional -- than at a local restaurant. But disabilities can beget another sort of poverty: a poverty of dignity.
Disability is isolating. It steals relationship. The disabled are too often ostracized from sharing in the benefits of society. Such discrimination is hardly Christ-like.
Combatting poverty and isolation are two of the thrusts of the church's social gospel, and recurrent themes of a pope who recognizes that the church must return to its roots of strengthening the connection between people while assuring that human dignity is offered to all.
For the church, disabilities are part of the continuum of life issues. The disabled deserve the same human dignity that directs the church to combat abortion, assisted suicide, capital punishment and more.
In 2014, speaking to the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis included people with disabilities in the church's efforts to support the dignity of life. "This is the Gospel of life," he said.
Those with disabilities offer us a glimmer of divine truth: It's not the strongest among us who forge the links that create relationship. It's the weakest and most vulnerable who connect us. How we treat them determines our success as community and reflects how we understand God.
--- Reaching out in love to all of God's people By Liz Quirin
We couldn't see this beautiful girl's disability until she took her own life and we heard in the homily at her funeral that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Her struggles to defeat the demons that raged within her could not be detected by anyone meeting her or speaking with her in very casual meetings. Her family suffered with her, trying to protect and care for her as she spiraled away from them and toward an irreversible conclusion: death by suicide.
Most of the time when we speak about "people with disabilities" we refer to those with physical disabilities, and they and their families have many obstacles to navigate in daily living as well as challenges not only in practicing but also fully participating in the Catholic faith.
Consider the person who would like to be a lector or extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and the sanctuary has steps. If that person uses a wheelchair or has difficulty managing steps, that person may not be able to lector or distribute Communion without some accommodation. Hopefully, a parish could and would immediately overcome that challenge and provide an opportunity to everyone in the community who wanted to take on a liturgical role.
People in a parish might not recognize someone in their midst with a mental disability because we can't always see the disability. One parent I know with a child with a mental disability told me she wished her daughter had something others could see. "It would just make things easier," she said.
Families are sometimes reluctant to share their stories when a child or parent has a disorder that is classified as a mental disability because they are embarrassed or want to keep their information private. We have to respect their privacy but somehow let them know that we want to support them in whatever way we can. It's tricky balancing that concern and a family's right or need for privacy.
How would we feel if we grew up knowing our mother is clinically depressed or suffering from schizophrenia? I might not want to bring my friends home after school to do homework or play or participate in activities for fear that someone would find out. When we are growing up, we don't want to stand out from the crowd, and keeping family secrets are the best way to fit in.
Where does the church stand on issues of mental illness? In a 1978 pastoral statement, the U.S. bishops said: "People with disabilities are not looking for pity. They seek to serve the community and to enjoy their full baptismal rights as members of the church. Our interaction with them can and should be an affirmation of our faith. There can be no separate church for people with disabilities. We are one flock that follows a single shepherd."
Those are wonderful words, good to use as our guide, but things don't always work out that way when "the rubber meets the road" in parish life. It just isn't easy to make major adjustments for people with disabilities, perhaps putting in ramps for folks in wheelchairs, changing the rules so lectors don't have to walk up five steps to deliver a reading, but these are necessary adjustments so that we can be "one flock."
However, when we have someone with mental disabilities or young people with special needs, the accommodations are much more difficult. How do you prepare a child with mental disabilities to receive the sacraments? Some dioceses have adapted, adjusted and ministered to these special people in wonderful ways, crafting materials to fit the needs of the person instead of trying to mold the person to the materials.
We have to reach out in love to all of God's people so that everyone feels welcome, including those families that deal with monumental struggles to bring the message of the Gospel to each person as a member of the body of Christ.
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