The contribution that people consecrated to the Lord can offer to the weakest, the most fragile, the most abandoned remains irreplaceable.
Society is increasingly denying the right to exist of people with severe handicaps: step by step, the legalization of eugenic abortion and euthanasia advances.
The Church insists on the right to life of every human being — regardless of limitations — even of those who seem to have only the slimmest capacity for relationship with others.
But this defense of elementary natural morality must be accompanied by concrete action — a true sign of genuine welcome, of love expressed and lived toward handicapped people.
It is a duty of Christian communities: families, parishes, movements, and also religious communities — precisely to set an example for all — that have chosen to live the Gospel message more fully and in different forms. Certainly these communities cannot assume alone, as they once did, the care of entire categories of handicapped people. But some possess houses and buildings they no longer need and would like to put to their best use. Many handicapped people today cannot find places that will take them in. This is true especially of those with serious personality disorders (psychotic individuals, autistic people...) and most of those with severe handicaps: the profoundly handicapped and those with multiple disabilities. These people are given little weight in policies of broad integration. Very often their parents are too shaken and distressed to organize and build something on their own. And today, given economic hardship, it is almost impossible to construct new buildings. What is possible is to restore buildings that no longer serve their original purpose. Some religious communities might consider this, within their means and according to their fidelity to the Gospel message.
Facilities That Respect Essential Values
Many parents would hope that if religious congregations decided to transform their property in this way, they would continue to exercise some responsibility within these facilities. These assets often come from gifts or bequests made with the wish that a certain spirit, certain essential convictions, be respected. The restoration of an old convent to welcome handicapped people cannot be done at the cost of abandoning or renouncing those convictions. And if the religious community chose to transfer management to others, could it not set a number of clear conditions regarding the vision, the implementation of the new project, and the inner unity of the groups involved? Could it not also, to multiply its work made difficult by lack of vocations, direct itself toward the formation of educators and teachers?
The right to life must be accompanied by concrete action — a sign of genuine welcome, of love expressed and lived toward handicapped people.
What hope for families if schools could arise for educators who are not only skilled in educational or psychotherapeutic techniques, but also deeply rooted in essential values!For handicapped adults, especially those who will need a place to live after their parents' death, how great is the need for places where those values and the convictions of their parents are respected! And how precious would be the presence of religious men and women, however few in number, in these places of life! And for those who must live with such suffering and bitterness an imposed celibacy, what a testimony it would be to see adults who have deliberately chosen the narrow way of celibacy consecrated to the Lord and to the service of others!
Many priests and religious today seek to be more present in the world by pursuing a profession. Among the choices offered to them, why not highlight activities in which they could embody in a privileged way the ideal of the Beatitudes?
Meeting So Many Needs
Some handicapped people, now without family, need families to welcome them — perhaps for weekends or vacations. Are there religious who think of them?
I know two members of an old community now disbanded who decided to continue their religious life while pursuing a profession. In their free time they welcome two people with severe handicaps, offering them a true family life. Many religious, committed to an active order and living a life of prayer while caring for elderly members of the community, certainly have no free time. But we must ask whether others might renew themselves, find ways to be present to the most afflicted.
Handicapped people need, like all of us, the word of God: it falls to the Christian community to guarantee and organize religious instruction and spiritual support for them. We must find people willing to undertake this teaching and who will train themselves to communicate with handicapped people. If a congregation were to leave its institute, parents would deeply hope that it would keep the responsibility of passing on God's word to those who, perhaps more than others, have need of hope.