Who among us has not attended a church celebration where people with disabilities were made unwelcome? We must acknowledge, though, that such painful events are becoming rarer. The Church is changing. It is becoming more faithful to the Gospel. Yet stepping into practices that feel new—into a true welcome that Pope Francis reminds us is essential to living the Gospel—is not easy. To welcome a child cast aside by the world is to welcome Christ.
A nearly blind Jesuit priest published an essay on disability in the Church in Civiltà Cattolica. The problem faced by people with disabilities stems from the mental patterns of our culture, which—even in our Church—respects above all the powerful, those who prevail in life's struggles. People with disabilities are the vanquished, apparently incapable of managing their lives alone in our societies. And theologians, too, have usually interpreted disability without real attention to the Gospel, ignoring Jesus's answer when asked about the man born blind: "Who sinned—he or his parents—that he was born blind? Neither he nor his parents" (Jn 9:1-12).
Justin Glyn, author of the Civiltà Cattolica essay, was born in 1972 in Namibia with severely malformed eyes. Raised in South Africa, he later moved to New Zealand. As a young man he worked in solidarity movements; as a lawyer, he focused especially on refugees. After entering the Society of Jesus, he was ordained in 2016 and completed his legal studies in Canada. His eyes have remained as they always were: very weak.
Glyn rejects the idea—which contradicts the Gospel—that his "disability" is a curse for some sin, or an opportunity to share in others' salvation through his suffering. God is not cruel. Theology must be corrected, made Christian. Christian faith—or contemplation of Jesus's Gospel—proclaims that God stands with everyone, above all with those cast out by society as less capable. The notion that humans should naturally be perfect like God, that they must be God to be loved by him, is absurd.
"According to Christian doctrine," Glyn writes, "the presence of the divine in our life meets us where we are, working through our creaturely goodness and acting on the gifts, limits, and talents of each person." The Gospel does not favor the strongest. A fourth-century theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus, said that "what was not assumed was not healed." The Lord cares for the least gifted.
Vatican II grasped the importance of this truth, which is fundamental to understanding how the Lord saves us from evil—by coming into our midst, becoming powerless on the cross as we are powerless on ours, and bearing in his risen body the marks of the nails. Christ's love unites us to God, draws us into his heart. Our titles matter nothing. Our honor is to be loved by Christ. "Christ is among us," Glyn writes, "taking on our wounded, maimed, and tortured body."
Our culture of power cannot understand the Gospel without conversion. People with disabilities find no welcome in a competitive, shallow, violent world. But disability calls us instead to ecclesial communion, to being together, to the Eucharistic bread—one bread broken into many pieces to be shared, Christ's body offered to all, shared in the living Church.