The conference, organized by the Don Guanella Foundation and B.I.C.E. (Bureau International Catholique de l'Enfance), took place in Milan from May 3–5, 1990.
The organizers identified three primary objectives:
- to promote awareness of the handicapped person's right to spiritual life and catechesis;
- to document the value of catechesis for integral human growth;
- to identify appropriate methods and approaches for catechetical instruction.
A fourth goal emerged as well, evident from the opening remarks but deeply felt throughout the conference:
- to foster in the Church, at every level and in all its parts, a growing pastoral sensitivity and concrete commitment to the Christian education of our handicapped brothers and sisters.
The presentations and testimonies gathered here reveal that in the spiritual life of handicapped persons—a domain long neglected and lagging far behind the burgeoning research and initiatives in physical rehabilitation and social integration—there is a profound awareness of the work ahead. Yet successful models already exist and are being implemented. We direct readers to the words of Cardinal Carlo M. Martini; Nino Minetti, Vicar General of the Don Guanella Foundation; José Davin, national coordinator for Belgium's ministry to handicapped persons (B.I.C.E.); Henri Bissonier, Professor Emeritus at the University of Louvain (B.I.C.E.); Marie Hélène Mathieu, co-founder of the movement Faith and Light; the Community of Saint Egidius in Rome; La Lega del Filo d'Oro in Osimo; La Nostra Famiglia in Ponte Lambro; Maria Grazia Granbassi; Giuliano Ruga; and many others.
As Maria Grazia Granbassi writes, these pages demonstrate that the Christian "in the name of faith not only gives deeper meaning to welcoming the handicapped person, but transforms that welcome into preference—in the realistic and active sense of those who bear the useful and responsible consciousness of sharing God's own concern for the troubled human condition."