Do people with mental disabilities participate in the life of Rome's parishes, in liturgical communities? Some have welcomed them enthusiastically, others are waiting benevolently, still others struggle to open their doors. Often, the difference depends on whether there is an organized group for people with disabilities.
On my way to meet the first of the Roman priests I'd arranged to speak with for this small inquiry, I carried prepared questions and ideas. But one memory overpowered them all—something from six years ago. That memory became the backdrop for everything I would ask and hear. I suspect many who attend Mass have had something similar happen to them, so I begin there.
In a respectable Roman church, the noon Mass had reached the Creed.
«I believe in God, the Father almighty...» we began to recite together when a cry filled the church—different from any sound I'd heard before. A cry—I wouldn't have thought to call it that now—a mad cry, I thought.
We all turned. Eyes pinned toward the source of the noise we couldn't see, because we were standing. The cry came again, the same each time, with silences between to catch breath.
After a few broken words, the Creed died away. I stood on the kneeler to look. Through the silence of the people came a man, a woman, and «the madman» in a wheelchair, moving quickly down the aisle. He threw his head back for air and lurched forward screaming. The woman tried to steady her son's rocking; the man pushed the chair. Their eyes fixed on the wheelchair, and all of us watched them.
It is this reality of gazes—intangible, yet in that moment more real than the marble floor beneath us—that I want to capture. They were like water pushing against a sealed boat.
They left. The Creed began again, in fewer voices as many whispered to one another.
Today, in Rome, how are people with mental disabilities welcomed into parish communities? Into liturgical communities? What problems do they present? How do parishioners react, and what do priests do? I put the question to six parishes in different social settings.
One clear answer I find across these conversations is that today, no priest, no parish community rejects people with mental disabilities. Some communities actively seek them out and welcome them; others have had rare contact and remain passively benevolent.
I have one doubt. Let me explain how it arose, from a phone call with Don Gianni, pastor of Santa Chiara Church in the Cassia area—a wealthy neighborhood.
Don Gianni had absolutely no time.
«We were four priests; now we're two,» he explained over the phone after I'd said I wanted to learn about his experience as a pastor and his impressions as a priest about welcoming people with mental disabilities into the parish community. His voice was well-modulated; he threw in a reference to Marx. He said we clergy are targeted, drowning in surveys and investigations.
Fifteen minutes would be enough. He could choose when.
He was very sorry, but they couldn't. Perhaps in May or June—then yes, absolutely. I thanked him. Four months was too long. And I was left with a doubt.
Let's move to Santa Maria Madre della Provvidenza at Donna Olimpia, a working-class neighborhood.
Don Pietro has never had problems welcoming people with mental disabilities to the parish community—at least not with the few who have come. Two young people are in the Scout group. Recently, a little girl received her First Communion in the church.
Did he use special catechesis for preparing her?
The priest seemed surprised such methods existed. That girl, he told me, was prepared by a catechist who became her friend too—she visited her often.
I had one case—he said—of a man with a disability, really more abandoned than anything, who behaved strangely in church. He'd ramble sometimes, respond loudly when he happened to come to Mass. I went a couple of times to help him feel less trapped. I didn't show any sign of impatience, so the other parishioners got used to him too. I haven't seen him in a while.
In this parish—he concluded—anyone is welcomed. If there were any reaction from parishioners, I'd explain the situation to them.
As I was leaving, I said that perhaps people with disabilities and their parents don't come to church because they can't overcome the barrier carved into their minds by a long past of rejection, stares, shame, and scarce charity. Since they exist, perhaps we should take the first steps—reach out and invite them, with all the delicacy we can muster. He seemed genuinely moved by this, though it was clear the problem had never been framed that way for him before.
Don Luigi, pastor of S. Maria Regina Pacis at Monteverde Vecchio, gave the same impression: the pastoral task of seeking out «the last,» the «stones rejected by builders,» had never presented itself to him, nor had the problem of welcoming people with mental disabilities into the liturgical community.
«This neighborhood,» he explained, «is solidly middle-class and quite traditional. The family here tends to be turned inward rather than outward. Discretion is one of its norms, so families with mentally disabled members don't take them out much.»
«We priests find a good number of them when we visit homes for Easter blessings. But very few have come to the parish, so we haven't really faced problems welcoming them. As a pastor, I'd actually like to have more of these 'problems'—more families with disabled members coming into parish life. When they want to come to Mass, I'll welcome them with joy.
For now, a group of friends of people with disabilities has formed and meets every two weeks. Three of them have mental disabilities.
It seems that whenever people with mental disabilities enter parish life, it happens through the formation of a «group of friends of people with disabilities.» The group grows by inviting them, getting to know them, learning to love them—and then it stirs the parish community, including priests, to accept them fully, then to give them a central place in our liturgies. Not from pity, but from fidelity to the Gospel.
This is what happened at the Parish of S. Pio V at Aurelio.
For eight years, the Handicapped Assistance Group (GAH) has met weekly with people with mental disabilities—to make friends, to play, to make music, and over time, to exercise together, to go on outings and camping trips, to stage sacred plays.
We are not with them on missionary campaigns, to convert them. We are with them in brotherhood.
We are not with them on missionary campaigns, to convert them. We are with them in brotherhood.Breaking the ice with the parish took work—one of the founders told me—but today...
Today, Pastor Don Edoardo and his assistant Don Virgilio speak with enthusiasm about how people with mental disabilities participate in the parish community. Their involvement has brought only positive effects. Through the «GAH» group, a work of spiritual awareness has begun. Today the group leads the main Sunday Mass and, of course, receives the sacraments like everyone else.
When the Pope visited the parish in '79, he spent a long time alone with the group.
Don Edoardo and Don Virgilio compete to describe the group's initiatives: a Nativity play (marked by surprising expressiveness and spiritual power, Don Edoardo notes), leading the pre-Easter Way of the Cross, building the nativity scene—the last one raised money for GAH activities and was supported by generous donations from parishioners. You can hear in how they speak that they too have grown because of this group and they know it.
«To learn how to communicate with them, to pass on what matters most about faith, we took lessons from specialized teachers,» Don Edoardo told me.
That may be one of the most interesting findings of this inquiry.
«No one prepared us for this,» Don Pino, an associate pastor at S. Giuseppe on via Boccea, said apologetically. He expressed real openness to the full participation of people with mental disabilities, though so far the question hasn't been put to the test. This very week a group of friends of people with disabilities is forming, inspired by the GAH at San Pio V.
I asked if they'd gone out to find people with mental disabilities.
«We priests can't do everything,» he answered.
This visit too confirms that parish communities open up when a group of disabled people grows, works, pushes, and witnesses.
«Problems with participation by people with disabilities? How have I changed as a pastor? There's not much to tell,» Don Antonio, pastor of Santa Silvia at Portuense, began.
«The first encounter leaves you speechless. Then you work on it, you grow.»
«The first encounter leaves you speechless. Then you work on it, you grow.»Then, at first hesitantly, he began to speak more freely, warming as the story came out—how a whole community had grown around a group of disabled people. This time a Faith and Light group.
The start was difficult. «We weren't prepared to welcome people with disabilities calmly. We had no training, no awareness.» «The first encounter leaves you speechless. Then you work on it, you grow.»
When they came to Mass, parishioners showed surprise at first, and some annoyance. Then acceptance came—passive at first, then friendly.
Today the group meets on Sunday at the noon Mass, and once a month they have a celebration.
«When I visit families with mentally disabled members, I always suggest Faith and Light. Often I meet with suspicion, but those who decide to come feel the friendship, the brotherhood. They open up, they talk, they sing, they dance.»
«There can be challenges in forming the companion group—some accept people with mental disabilities and start a real friendship, others can't manage it.»
«We've come a long way. It was difficult too. When it came time to give Communion to Francesca, a girl who by our rules had no use of reason—which made it impossible to meet the two conditions required (understanding and willingness)—we went to the Congregation of Rites with a letter, and then, backed by French bishops, to the Pope. Paul VI said yes.»
«Today,» Don Antonino concluded, «the participation of people with disabilities, the work of Faith and Light, is central to our parish community. Not to use them as pastoral tools—that would be well-intentioned, but psychologically a mistake. We are not with them on missionary campaigns, to convert them. We are with them in brotherhood.»
That distinction struck me as important. The temptation of pity, of showing charity, is always lurking.
Don Tonino, pastor of the Church of the Protomartirs, had the same message: in his parish too, people with mental disabilities are more than welcomed. A Faith and Light group operates there.
«The soul is the same for everyone,» he told me simply, «even when it's imprisoned in a body that doesn't respond.»
«The sacraments are received in faith. Who can know that? Who can judge it?»
«Someone once asked me: why give them Communion and Confirmation if they don't understand? That's for God to worry about!» he said calmly. He too had walked this road.
-by Sergio Sciascia