Henri Bissonier

Father Henri Bissonier is undoubtedly an authority in the field of catechesis for people with mental disabilities. He has written many books and articles, taught at numerous universities, and founded and directed national and international movements of people with disabilities. But he did not merely theorize: tested by illness since childhood, at nineteen he discovered, in the great sanatoriums of the Alps, the social exclusion and spiritual desolation of the world of the sick. From his ordination in 1935 onwards, he devoted his entire priestly life to a daily struggle for the defense of the rights of people with disabilities, for the recognition of their dignity, for their integration into social life and the Christian community. He was a pioneer in France in the catechesis of people with disabilities, entering with all the strength of his hope and the sensitivity of his heart into the sad and closed world of a public hospital where mentally handicapped young women and girls "lived."