«I'm Matteo, and I have a very severe disability, but the fact that I'm here means many barriers have come down,» typed an autistic teenager into his mother's phone—a young man acutely aware of himself and the world around him. He was speaking, alongside his friend Paolo, at a conference organized by Sister Veronica Donatello—a nun now responsible for catechesis for people with disabilities at the national catechetical office of the Italian bishops' conference—held in Sacrofano in late April about spiritual accompaniment for people with disabilities, a vital need that Matteo defined this way: «It's not just a right for us and for you, but a need that comes from within us. It helps us carry our daily burden better because Jesus makes us feel unique and special, and you have the task of helping us live that. I'm ready to work with you.»
Matteo is right: many barriers have fallen. But there are still far too many walls to tear down before the Church becomes the truly «generative community» we heard so much about in Sacrofano—where, rather than simply attending a conference, we had the privilege of tasting a concentrated burst of testimonies and projects. Vastly different from one another, yet united by a shared desire that the «outward-facing Church» truly begin to dwell—as Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano said—«in the lives of people, in their territories, in the everyday life that is the only alphabet for communicating the Gospel.» In his remarks, Semeraro distilled in a few words what lies at the heart of so many unresolved questions, inside and outside the Church: «We need relationships, not just preaching from the pulpit. Faith is passed from person to person, just as receiving a sacrament requires us to see and touch one another. Relationships reach people in all their dimensions.»
We need relationships, not just preaching from the pulpit. Faith is passed from person to person, and receiving a sacrament requires us to see and touch one another.
The conference revealed how only by stepping down from the pulpit of our own prejudices can we reach the human being and create real relationships—mixing our fragility with theirs, our desires and needs with theirs. The point was not to congratulate ourselves on having had this idea or realized that project to meet the spiritual needs of people with disabilities (and believe me, we saw wonderful ideas and projects in abundance), but to question ourselves about how we understand people with disabilities. About whether we are truly capable of seeing them and giving them genuine, fitting, and kind responses.
To look at disability and lose sight of the person, or to imagine that a single answer exists for all «disabled» people, is the worst and gravest error imaginable. At Sacrofano, Professor Lucio Moderato argued forcefully—and he travels across Italy making this case—that autism is not a disease but a condition, and «we are the ones who must see the people and change our paradigms.» When asked from the audience what he believed in, this convinced atheist answered brilliantly, reframing his three theological virtues in secular terms: faith in people's capacity to learn; hope that something surprising always lies around the corner; and love as the engine of willpower. Lucio Moderato is not only among the world's leading experts on intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. Living with spastic tetraparesis since birth, the professor shows us that another world is truly possible.