The quality of life within a community is measured largely by its commitment to caring for the weakest and most vulnerable and by its respect for their dignity as human beings (...) Only when the rights of the most vulnerable are recognized can a society claim to be founded on law and justice (...)
Recognizing rights must therefore be followed by a sincere commitment from all to create concrete living conditions, structures of support, and legal protections capable of meeting the needs and supporting the growth and development of the handicapped person and those who share in their situation, beginning with their families. (...)
The emotional and sexual dimensions of the handicapped person deserve particular attention. This is an aspect often ignored, treated superficially and reductively, or approached in an ideological way. Yet sexuality is one of the constitutive dimensions of the human person who, created in the image of God who is Love, is called from the beginning to realize himself in encounter and communion (....)
God always stands with the small, the poor, the suffering, and the cast out. By becoming human and being born in the poverty of a stable, the Son of God proclaimed in himself the blessedness of the afflicted and shared in all things, save sin, the lot of humanity created in His image.
After Calvary, the Cross, embraced with love, becomes the path to life and teaches each of us that if we traverse with trusting surrender the difficult and arduous way of human suffering, there will blossom for us and for our brothers and sisters the joy of the Living Christ, which surpasses all desire and all expectation!