Chronicle Congress Catechesis and Disability

The Pope at the International Congress "CATECHESIS AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: A NECESSARY ATTENTION IN THE DAILY LIFE OF THE CHURCH":

"We are all vulnerable"

Organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization (responsible among other things for the promotion and coordination of catechesis throughout the Church), and held at the Pontifical Urbaniana University from October 20 to 22, 2017, the International Congress "Catechesis and people with disabilities: a necessary attention in the daily life of the Church" brought together 500 people among catechists, pastoral agents in the field of diverse capacities, and people with disabilities.

The Congress had presentations of theological and pastoral foundation on this "necessary" ecclesial attention, as well as numerous testimonies of various initiatives in the five continents, mainly on the processes of Christian initiation with persons with disabilities, and also of other convergent pastoral experiences. , and the testimony of priests and consecrated persons with disabilities. The highlight of the Congress was undoubtedly the special audience with the Holy Father in the Clementina room, where in addition to the speech addressed to the congressmen, he wanted to greet each one of them with gestures of affection and expressions of great joy shared with the congressmen with some kind of disability, both physical and mental. 

The perception of love

Among the papers on theological foundation include the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Monsignor Rino Fisichela, who began by saying that if catechesis is the transmission of faith, it is so insofar as "faith consists in the perception of being loved ", given that" it is generated and sustained by the love of God ", and that" it lives of love ". Because God not only "speaks" to man, but "entertains" him. And "God always makes us feel his love and makes us understand how he loves us in situations and in the circumstances in which each one is". From this perspective, catechesis in general, and that which has to do with people with disabilities, said Monsignor Fisichela, must be revised from the culture of the encounter and the Church in the way that Pope Francis proposes to us.

Image of God

The presentation of Professor Stafano Toschi of the "Beati noi" association of Bologna on "Life in Christ, man in the image of God" (read by another person given his physical disability) on the path that the concept of communication in general and of communication of the faith in particular has had throughout the history of philosophy, showed how the Cartesian dimension of communication has involved a cognitive reductionism of communication to understand both communication with God and communication between men, with serious consequences when it comes to a communication in which people with some type of disability intervene. The true human communication, much more complex, requires an anthropology for which its identity as an image of God allows us to discover other dimensions (emotional, spiritual, etc ...) that integrate all the human capacities, not only the cognitive one.

 After Professor Pia Matthews, from the London University of Sant Mary, whose more theological presentation showed the true meaning of the value of equality among all human beings, an equality based on the fact that all share the foundation of their dignity, having been not only created in the image of God, but redeemed in the new man, Christ patient dead and risen. This foundation has been and will always be against any trend of discrimination, of which we Christians are not excluded.

On the tutelage of people with disabilities, Sheila Hollins, of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, spoke before the inauguration, as the last moment of the first day of the congress, of the exhibition "The catechism of the Catholic Church accessible to all. Pastoral and catechetical instruments for the inclusion of people with disabilities ".

Special catechesis?

On the Christian initiation of people with disabilities spoke on the second day of the congress Miguel Romero, professor at the Salve Regina University of Rhode Island (United States), as the bishop of Borken Bay (Ausrtralia) Monsignor Peter Andrew Comensoli.

Miguel Romero developed the theological and pastoral arguments of his exhibition with his personal experience as elder brother of a mentally handicapped person. From a young age, this question was asked: what happens to my brother? While discovering that his school friends saw in his brother only differences and limitations, from the faith he discovered instead in his brother the protagonist of an extraordinary "alliance" of love between God, him and his brother, that dissipated the differences between both because "We are all equal before the need of the grace and mercy of God".

To explain this different way of looking at the reality of disability, we must understand how in modernity the concept of man's autonomy before God has marked an anthropology in which "strength", "freedom" (maneuver) and "capacity" "They are considered indispensable attributes of the human being, while weakness, vulnerability and disability depreciate the human valence.

And from this modern prejudice we are not always free when facing the pastoral challenge. Hence, there can be a rational catechetical ideal among Christians, which sees in disability (not only, but especially in the intellectual) an obstacle to the "excellence" of catechesis, which also has its sights set on a normalized recipient and generic catechesis, instead of a personalized, concrete and real recipient, which is each one of the catechumens. It helps us to get rid of this dehumanizing (and even repellent) reading, the natural theology of Saint John Paul II that teaches us that the only difference that exists is in the type and the degree of limitations among the recipients of catechesis.

That is why it is convenient to banish the differentiation between a "normal catechesis" and a "special or alternative catechesis" (which does not exclude differentiated pedagogical processes under the principle of adaptation), because there is only one catechesis, which is given in the relationship between catechists and catechumens, in which the limitations of both come into play. A unique catechesis therefore always adapts to the capacities and limitations of each catechumen, as stated in the basic principle of the General Directory of Catechesis, that of its double fidelity: fidelity to the message, and fidelity to the recipient.

If it is true that people are perfected, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, in his likeness to God in love, Miguel Romero was able to conclude by saying that his 41-year-old brother, although with cognitive capacity of 11 years, is not a child, but an adult with 41 years of human experience, and so it must be treated by all, including the Christian community to which it belongs.

Faith as participation

Where is the guarantee of free adherence to faith when we can only intellectually presume it? To answer this question we can start from this postulate: "We are not only creatures of God (created by him), but interlocutors of God."

That is why, explained Archbishop Peter Andrew Comensoli, the sacraments, "precious occasions in the process of Christian initiation," are "efforts of God in his dialogue of love with men," and "signs of the participation of those who receive them. the life of God in Christ. " And that is why if we have faith it is because we are human, it is a consequence of human existence. Man does not "realize faith", but it is faith that "realizes man".

Hence, on the one hand, "it is the fact that we are human, and not how we are, what matters to participate in the sacramental life of the Church"; and on the other hand, the response of the faith "does not depend on any capacity for realization but on participation in the life of Christ", so that even in the most profound disabilities this full participation takes place, not based on what the people perform, but in what they are.

And if faith is "the distinctive sign of a creature able to speak with God", and therefore we must value the dialogical and linguistic dimension (listening, acceptance, response) of faith, as a gift of God and as a human response , we must understand that people with extreme disabilities are not excluded from language in their dialogue with God, since they do so from an existential language, that of a relationship that escapes us from others. For them, it also says the prayer about the offenses of the sacrament of confirmation, when it implores for them to be "configured today more perfectly with Christ, who with his death deserved the gift of the Spirit; and grant them that the participation in the Eucharist, memorial of the Passover of the Lord, impels them to bear witness to Jesus Christ your Son. "

There are no limits that prevent the encounter with Christ.

Pope Francis left in his speech in the audience he had with those attending the Congress of this contradiction: on the one hand that "the growth in the awareness of the dignity of each person, especially those weaker, has led to take courageous positions for the inclusion of those who live with different forms of disability "; and on the other hand, the one that, "on the other hand, at the cultural level, there are still expressions that are harmful to the dignity of these people in order to maintain a false consciousness of life". Namely, that of a "largely narcissistic and utilitarian vision" that leads these people to marginalization, to consider them incapable of being happy and to realize themselves, and therefore without recognizing their "multiform human and spiritual richness" " The proof of this is the practice of suppressing the unborn who presents any form of imperfection.

In any case, the Pope said, "it is a dangerous deception to think that we are invulnerable. As one girl I met on my recent trip to Colombia said, vulnerability belongs to the essence of man. " 

Because the answer is always in love, "not that false, naughty and pietistic, but that true, concrete and respectful", the Church can not be hoarse or out of tune in the defense and promotion of people with disabilities, "also with its inclusion in the generation of the Christian life and in the participation of the Sunday liturgy. And especially in catechesis, "called to discover and experience consistent forms so that each person, with his gifts, his limits, and his disability, even serious, can find Jesus on his way and surrender to him from the faith. No physical and psychic limit can ever be an impediment to this encounter, because the face of Christ shines in the most intimate of each person ".

In addition, the Pope urged us to be alert to the neo-Pelagian temptation not to recognize the strength of the grace of the sacraments of Christian initiation, to overcome all difficulties in the relationship with people with disabilities, and to invent with intelligence appropriate instruments for that no one lacks the support of grace. For all this it is necessary, concluded the Pope, both to train catechists as capable as possible to accompany these people so that they grow in faith and give their genuine and original contribution to the life of the Church, as well as favoring that more and more disabled themselves can be catechists, so that with their testimony they can transmit the faith in a more effective way.

 Convincing and exciting testimonials.

Convincing because they clearly showed that catechesis and people with disabilities is not only real, plural and growing, but also enormously enriching for the entire Christian community. Exciting because they open the door to a kind of joyful experience of the faith and of Christian communion that is still very unknown even within the Church.

Some Italians with an intellectual disability spoke about their personal relationship with God, and introduced all of them into that profound mystery of faith, which is the encounter with Jesus Crucified and Abandoned embraced in the midst of the vicissitudes of disability.

Father Guiuseppe Fabbrini and Professor Fiorenza Pastelli, from the parish of Santa María de Loreto, told about the experience that was expected as water for May by many of the participants of the Congress: when we talk about catechesis and disability we do not only talk about catechumens with disabilities , but also of catechists with disabilities, a very incipient experience that Pope Francis had already pointed out in his speech.

Father Michaél Depcik OSFS, director of the Cathilc Deaf Community of the Archdiocese of Detroit (USA), one of the 20 mute deaf priests in the world, shared his conversion experience. If we take into account that only 3% of parents of deaf children learn the language of the deaf, and that 96% of the deaf do not participate in the liturgical celebrations, we understand the scope of this pastoral challenge. The deaf do not think with words, but with signs. Words can be translated, but how to translate the "music" of the deaf? It is not just about translating from one language to another, but from one way of thinking to another. But in addition, the difficulties of communication are not only given by language, but also because the deaf have other vital needs than those of the listeners.

Father Depcik was lucky to be the son of the deaf and dumb, who initiated him in the faith and transmitted the example of the saints. In the Catholic school they taught him to pray without understanding what he said, reciting prayers whose meaning had not been properly translated into his gestural world. But on a trip to Australia when he was 18 (and he was about to leave the Church), he learned from the family that he was welcomed there by another way of praying, conversing with God, naturally, with his gestures. And from that experience he was able to find the vocation to the priesthood and the exercise of his ministry in the service of the deaf. A pastoral from the word of Jesus to that deaf and dumb person, "effeta", that we all receive as a sign in baptism. Because it is not just a call from Christ to open the ears to listen and the lips to speak, but a call to all, beyond capacities and disabilities, to open the mind and heart to the Word of God.

The experience of Cristina Gangemi, director in the United Kingdom of "Kairos", started from a meeting with a young person with a mental disability at the door of a cemetery, when it was going to close. Are you waiting for someone? He asked. Yes, I wait for my mom. When asked a cemetery doorman, she told him that she had been coming to see her for ten years, but her mother was buried. When someone died right there, he told her that he had left, but that he would return. Gangemi then realized the need to know how to introduce the mentally disabled into the experience of death. For them it is also the experience of mourning and the catechesis of Christian hope. Thus, for this purpose, "Kairos" was born, to accompany everyone, including people with disabilities, at the time of the loss of a loved one.

Who has said that people with disabilities, physical or mental, can not be catechists, or can not consecrate their lives to God and to the service of the Church? The testimony of the sisters with and without Down syndrome, of the female Monastic Community Petites Soeurs disciples de lágneau, left everyone delighted. They spread enthusiasm, between words and gestures full of gratitude to God and the Church, full of humility.

The experience of Father Gabriele Pipinato, founder of the Sanit Martin Catholic Socal Apostolate of Talitha-Kum and the communities of L'Arche in Kenya, was that of a priest so grateful to God for his priestly vocation as for his dedication to people with disabilities , of which he said he learns every day to live his faith. He told, almost in the manner of a confession, as in moments of personal difficulty before the difficulties of any social initiative, it was the people with disabilities who gave him peace, who reminded him of the infinite and merciful love of God , through the love and joy of those who most identify with Jesus.

Anne Dewulf of Belgium told the secret of the work of the Community of Sant'Egidio with the disabled, which is the same as with the emigrants and with all those who offer some kind of need: friendship. The Community does not welcome them as recipients of aid, but rather loves them, loves them as friends, introduces them into the communitarian bonds of mutual love, and offers them with prayer the experience of God's love.

More than a congress, it was an open window to the Church on the way out, the one recalled by Monsignor Fisichela, explains the Pope in number 46 of Evangelii Gaudium: "Going out to others to reach the human peripheries does not mean running towards the world aimlessly and without meaning. Many times it is more to stop the step, to leave aside the anxiety to look into the eyes and listen, or to renounce the urgencies to accompany the one who stayed at the side of the road ".