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The Church Needs Inclusive Religious Communities

The following appeared in the October 18, 2003 issue of Our Sunday Visitor

It was gracious of Sister Marlene J. Taylor of the Servants of the Lamb of God (Letter – Sept. 28th) to refer those Catholics with disabilities who are seeking information about religious communities to the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. We welcome information from such individuals.  However, we do not maintain a list of communities that welcome inquiries from those seeking to serve the Catholic Church as professionals since it is the duty of this national office to promote greater knowledge of and encourage compliance with the three documents which the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued on the need for such inclusion.

The most recent reiteration was the 1999 statement, Welcome and Justice for Persons with Disabilities: A Framework of Access and Inclusion, which notes:

“We welcome qualified persons with disabilities to ordination, to consecrated life, and to fulltime, professional service in the Church.”

In the USCCB’s 1995, Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons with Disabilities the bishops went into greater detail in terms of those who feel a call to the priesthood:

“The existence of a physical disability is not considered in and of itself as disqualifying a person from holy orders. . . .   Cases are to be decided on an individual basis and in light of pastoral judgment and the opinions of diocesan personnel and other experts involved with disability issues.  Diocesan vocations offices and offices for ministry with person with disabilities should provide counseling and informational resources for men with disabilities who are discerning a vocation to serve the Church through one of the ordained ministries.”

Next month we will be celebrating the 20^th anniversary of passage of the historic 1978 Pastoral Statement of U. S. Catholic Bishops on Persons with Disabilities, an early statement encouraging the acceptance of qualified candidates for ordination or the religious life, “in spite of their significant disabilities.”

The Board of Directors of NCPD has made it clear that every religious community should look at candidates as individuals, assessing both their gifts and their human limitations.  The secular world, as accommodations for various physical disabilities have become increasingly common, has learned that the cost of the majority of devices which allow people to participate fully on the job cost less than $500.   We Catholics have not always paused long enough to even evaluate the cost of welcoming the diversity of abilities which are a part of God’s plan for His people.

There are millions of Catholics with disabilities who look forward to the day when welcome, justice and inclusion are on the agenda of all those who lead the Church.

Mary Jane Owen, TOP, MSW
National Catholic Partnership on Disability
 

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