The newest Liturgy Dictionary, edited by D. Sartore, A.M. Triacca, and C. Cibien (San Paolo 2001), breaks new ground by devoting an entry to "disability and liturgy," written by Don Carlo Cibien (pp. 920-935). These pages speak primarily to priests, catechists, and pastoral workers.
The article opens with general observations on disability, distinguishing among impairment, disability, and handicap—all "different aspects of a structural inequality, congenital or acquired, that creates an objective distance between a particular person and the group within which he lives" (p. 920). Often this difference becomes inferiority, marginalization, or at the opposite extreme, forced integration that "further pathologizes already precarious situations of dependency and overprotection" (p. 921). From this arise "three principles that must guide every approach to questions concerning the participation of disabled people in social life: integration, normalization, and personalization" (p. 922).
The article then examines various types of disability, congenital or acquired:
- motor disability;
- sensory and speech-hearing disability;
- visual sensory disability;
- congenital cerebral disability;
- psycho-intellectual disability.
Scripture and the Person with Disability
In the third section, Cibien offers biblical reflection: Can Scripture offer guidance about disabled people? The Old Testament required that only those free from any physical defect or mutilation could bring offerings to the temple (cf. Leviticus 21:16-20). In the Gospels, we find Jesus encountering the blind, the crippled, the deaf and mute, lepers—healing "every disease and infirmity." This does not mean Christians no longer experience illness, weakness, disability, poverty. It means that in Jesus's presence, all of this acquires new meaning. When Paul asked to be freed from his affliction ("a thorn in my flesh"), the Lord answered: "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Cor 12:7-10). When the lawyer asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus transformed the question into "Are you a neighbor?" (Lk 10:25-37). The article presents other biblical insights, and the discussion could continue. Yet in my view, what should remain at the center is always the Lord's Paschal mystery—his cross and resurrection—the paradigm of every Christian life.
In the fourth section, Cibien addresses the article's central concern: the participation of disabled people in the liturgy. These observations are remarkably rich, drawn from research, experience, and magisterial documents. Rather than repeat everything, I will focus on the points that seem most significant.
Liturgical celebration must not be isolated from the rest of life—it has a "before" and an "after." This means involving the family, avoiding one-off occasions, and being attentive to "the specific needs of those in such a condition and to their right not to suffer further humiliation" (p. 926).
Seeking a Faith Journey That Truly Fits
This makes the formation of catechists and pastoral ministers crucial. Often they are entirely unprepared, so they resort to extreme solutions—either total exclusion or maximum accommodation—rather than undertaking the search for a genuine, adapted faith journey.
The article then addresses the problem of language and communication (pp. 927-929). Happily, the liturgy engages the whole person and therefore employs gestures, images, symbols. The presence of disabled people in celebrations has shown us how wrong a certain post-conciliar tendency was—the drive to eliminate as many gestures, signs, and images as possible.
But the primary sign is the community itself: when it can "celebrate" its faith in fullness, it creates a "synergy" that the disabled person will "symbolically perceive as 'loving attention' meant to help him live better" (p. 928). We are pleased to see that on this question of language, Cibien explicitly cites H. Bissonier's book, "Your Word Is for Everyone."
The Church Still Struggles to Welcome the Last
There follows a section on the sacraments: Christian initiation (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist), reconciliation, marriage, orders, and the anointing of the sick. This section deserves separate, careful study, so I direct readers to the original text.
I close with some of Cibien's final words, which seem to me profoundly apt: "Despite two thousand years of history and countless prompts, the Church still faces grave difficulties in welcoming and caring for the last. (…) The presence of disability in our liturgical communities calls us to greater sensitivity, gentleness, initiative, respect for the person. It requires us to rethink our concept of 'normalcy'; it invites humble listening; in a word, it 'rehumanizes' our liturgical communities, preparing them for the transforming and healing welcome of God's Spirit" (p. 933).
- Enrico Cattaneo S.J., 2002
