To mark thirty years of Ombre e Luci and the Year of Faith, we dedicate this issue to welcoming people with disabilities in our parishes.
In 1971 at Lourdes, where young people with mental handicaps, their parents, and friends gathered for the first time—the future communities of Faith and Light—Jean Vanier answered their question about how to make sense of that experience this way: "continue until every person with a handicap has encountered a community where—without being specialists but simply Christians—we learn to discover and live together the extraordinary Good News of Jesus".
Forty years later, these words still challenge us, along with the more recent words of Cardinal Vallini, who urges us in this Year of Faith to renew and make extraordinary our faith and Christian life, especially in the dimension of the everyday.
We spoke about this with Monsignor Andrea Lonardo, director of the Catechetical Office of the Vicariate of Rome. We were aware that his experience reflects Roman reality—not universalizable, but significant in its breadth and distinctive character. In carrying out his responsibilities, he has guided the beginning of a process to offer parishes the chance to exchange experiences and reflections on this subject.
With him, we reflect on what is being done today to welcome people with disabilities "in the everyday life" of a parish: Sunday Mass and catechesis for the sacraments of Christian initiation.
"For a Christian, participation in the Eucharist should be the most powerful and effective way to know Jesus. It is the starting point for everything else. When it happens within a shared community Sunday Mass, experienced by all together, it brings out its fullest value as encounter, communion, and exchange. In such a setting, the steady presence of a person with a disability—with their difficulties, particularities, and gifts—is able to overcome obstacles like the worry that they might disturb others (sadly, this is one of the most frequent arguments, and not only for some people with handicaps: think of children, lively and noisy sometimes, even during Masses meant for them…). But if we deny them the experience and beauty of the "ritual" in its formative value, not merely its formal aspects, we rob them of a real encounter that is worth more than many words.
This encounter must not be occasional but must become a habit. The person with a disability will then be recognized and welcomed, and will recognize those around them and feel that they belong to that community." We cannot ignore the importance of one's home parish for anyone who wants to walk a Christian path of knowing Jesus and to find in it a welcoming place. "Right now it is truly uncommon for someone to turn away a family asking for their disabled child to receive catechesis. But it seems harder for someone to try to seek out other families in the same situation." We ourselves probably do not notice the absence of many people with disabilities during Sunday services (and we cannot help but extend this thought to those with only physical handicaps).
"A group of people is working in this direction—lay people and consecrated persons who care deeply about this issue, like Sister Veronica, who organizes Masses with an interpreter in sign language (LIS) in some Roman parishes; Father Andrea Carlevale, who has promoted a training course for seminarians in learning LIS. Two Roman pastors who, discreetly, take care to reach out to families living with this difficulty. And some lay people who want to create formation for catechists willing to accompany anyone preparing for the sacraments in their parish. There is also an unseen reality that would be good to uncover and share."
We are indeed sure that in many Italian parishes the obstacle has been overcome, and people with disabilities find their space to grow. We also know that many groups, associations, and catechists have already undertaken and documented individual paths of special and inclusive catechesis, available through the important work of the National Catechetical Office, Disability Sector, which also promotes conferences and study days on this subject.
The urgent challenge before us is to awaken awareness in many other parish communities about the absence of many people and families living with this difficulty and to seek them out so they do not remain alone. Small groups or tight-knit communities, sometimes rooted within parishes, whose heart is centered on the person with a disability, are very important for creating deep bonds and for addressing some difficulties: the person with a handicap needs to be well known in their needs and ways of communicating. But this does not change the fact that it should be the entire community that can (must?) participate and benefit from the presence of all its members.
The journey is not straightforward nor easy, but we must undertake it if we want the Church to reveal, as Jean Vanier says, its prophetic face—the face of Jesus.
by Rita Massi and Cristina Tersigni, 2013