We publish two excerpts and an introductory letter from a document by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which deserves the careful reading and reflection of parents, friends, and especially priests.
Dear friends,
I write this letter especially for you—those called intellectually disabled or mentally handicapped. I want you to know that God loves you deeply and that you belong to God's people.
I want your parents, brothers and sisters, and friends to know that you are full members of the Church. Through Baptism and Confirmation, you have a place in the Church that no one can take from you.
Some of you live with your families. Others live in small communities or large institutions. But all of you belong to the family of Jesus.
I am enclosing a document in which I affirm that we must find ways for you to come to Church and receive Holy Communion.
Everyone who comes to Church must be your friend. I want you to know you have a place at the Lord's Table.
Where Else Will They Have a Place?
The liturgical assembly is the gathering of parish members who stand before the Father to offer prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
This gathering is always a process of growth—growth in faith in God and in respect for one another. The parish faces a real challenge: to discern and decide why and how to welcome people with intellectual disabilities into its life through the sacraments.
Parish liturgical life must offer a dynamic environment that helps them, at every age, to overcome isolation and to discover others as believers. It must create opportunities to help them overcome fear of others. It must also give every parishioner the courage to risk something—to build solidarity, to build unity, to build up the Body of Christ.
The parish assembly provides continuously for the sacramental life of all its members, including those with intellectual disabilities.
If families cannot bring all their members to the parish church, where can they bring them? If each person does not have a place at the table of God's Word and at the table of God's Bread, where will they have a place?
Yet to provide an atmosphere worthy of dignity and reverence in worship, we need skilled leadership, good judgment, and deep respect for both the assembly and for each person with a disability.
Responding to the Family's Need
The disability of a child or young person or adult is a terrible blow to a family. It threatens the balance of all relationships between family members—parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, and others. It can challenge faith in God as a merciful Father. Sometimes a family needs time to recover from the shock, to work through anxiety, and to rebuild its bonds. Often it is only gradually that a family can approach parish leaders to ask for the celebration of a sacrament.
The parish faces a real challenge: to discern and decide why and how to welcome those with intellectual disabilities into its life through the sacraments
To respond well to such a request, parish leaders must be sensitive and willing to listen. They respond not only to the person with a disability but to the entire family.
The family has the right to expect participation in the sacraments and related catechesis for its members with disabilities. And so, even if progress is slow and the path not always smooth and easy.
On the other hand, the parish and its leaders have the right to expect the family to take part in the religious education and faith formation of one of its members. In this journey, in other words, there is a mutual relationship between family and parish.
What signs show that a person with intellectual disabilities is ready to receive the Eucharist? They are: the desire to receive it, relationships with people who share the faith and prayer, and a sense of the sacred shown through behavior. Often these people cannot use words to express the difference between ordinary bread and the Bread of God, but they can show they recognize the difference through their outward bearing, their eyes, their gestures, or their meaningful silence. We can presume that God desires to be in communion with the person; the person's desire for communion must be awakened and nurtured.
When people with intellectual disabilities are in the assembly and feel united to those around them, it is natural that they feel the desire to receive Communion. Families and catechists should support this desire, nurture it, and move toward First Communion while the desire is alive. More detailed catechesis, explaining the meaning of the event more fully, often bears fruit after First Communion.
Sometimes a person is so disabled that it is difficult for them to approach the minister of Communion. In that case, Communion will be brought to them.
In some cases the person with intellectual disabilities is too ill to come to Church. A liturgy in the home or in the institution where they live is the best opportunity and the most suitable place for First Communion.
- Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago (USA), 1989