At a recent training event organized by the Diocese of Rome for catechists under the title "Abilities That Include," priests and laypeople, professionals and friends, spoke about the value of people with disabilities within the Christian community and the solidarity that must bind its members together. In a truly Christian community, people are not chosen by category or divided by ability. Rather, they are bound to one another—above all as brothers and sisters united in the same Baptism.
The Church, as Fr. Andrea Lonardo emphasized, baptizes without distinction of age, health, cognitive capacity, or social status. It does so because the grace that flows from Baptism is profoundly necessary to every human being. That sacrament carries a promise of salvation that grants dignity regardless of the abilities we possess or lack.
But Baptism commits the community to standing in full solidarity with one another through the various experiences life brings. Disability, as Dr. Riva from the Association L'Abilità pointed out at that same gathering, is not a disease requiring only specialized interventions. It is a human condition that calls for ordinary responses—responses that are both practical and rooted in solidarity. The association itself has built a network of families supporting other families, offering respite care on weekends by welcoming a child with disabilities into their home. Dr. Riva went on to stress that when parents first learn of their child's disability, they face unavoidable suffering. The only way forward is to give that suffering meaning. But meaning cannot come from doctors, psychologists, or teachers alone. It must also come from friends and the broader community—from a priest, from a neighbor—as brothers and sisters, not merely as volunteers.
Only then can that child and family find their true place in the story, their narrative, their time and space within the history of salvation in which we all participate.
Cristina Tersigni, 2017