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Excerpts from Vatican Documents Related to

the Jubilee and People with Disabilities

Excerpts from "The Person with Disabilities: Active Agent in Ministry," Rome 7 April 2000:

 The person with disabilities, created in God’s image, in whom God’s love is made manifest and who is a privileged witness of humanity, is directly responsible for his history and his life, just like any other person.

 The Lord Jesus calls each of us to be his disciples, to open ourselves to the gift of communion with the Father and with our brothers and sisters in the faith....Persons with disabilities receive the same call from the Lord to live the discipleship in a responsible and an active way and enrich the People of God with the gifts entrusted to them by the Lord.

 Not only with the witness of their life, but also through the activity of which they are capable according to their possibilities, persons with disabilities can be active subjects of pastoral work. They themselves can communicate the “treasures of the faith” and lead all to communion with the Father in Jesus by means of the Spirit.

 The Church, to be truly the Bride of Christ, must consider persons with disabilities and those around them as a theological place in which “God works his wonders,” realizes his love for mankind and calls the community to conversion and discernment of evangelical values.  The Church does this when she:  

·   proclaims the truth about the dignity and absolute value of each person, of every condition and state, of persons with disabilities for the fact that they are persons created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by Christ and glorified in Him.

·   acts within and outside the Church for the full acceptance and integration of persons with disabilities.

·   offers them and their families, solidarity, sharing, closeness and authentic compassion.

·   considers persons with disabilities “as active agents, subjects of evangelization” because they are moral agents of transformation of the Church and of society, pushing them more and more towards the social integration of every disability.

·   gives to all, the certainty of being loved by the Father.

·   is reconciled with persons with disabilities and with their families, asking for forgiveness because of hesitation, delays, lack of charity, situations of solitude, and individual and common indifference towards them.

·   removes physical, mental, and ideological barriers, and those of  communication and language, all of which prevent full integration of persons with disabilities in the life of the Church and society.

·   facilitates the participation of persons with disabilities in the liturgy, and all the sacraments and life of the Church, according to the vocation of each, also regarding marriage, the priestly ministry and the consecrated life.

·   trains people with disabilities to be qualified catechists of the “mystery of faith,” able to proclaim it adequately.

·   prepares, with a change in mindset, future bishops, priests, deacons, and all those who offer their service and ministry to persons with disabilities in an appropriate and respectful manner, promoting their dignity as children of God.

·   cooperates with social-political and cultural structures and organizations for the promotion of persons with disabilities offering alternative proposals when methods and objectives fail to reflect the dignity of the person.

Excerpts from "The Person with Disabilities: Receiver of Evangelization and Catechesis," Rome 17 May 2000:

Disability is not a punishment, it is a place in which to meet “the mystery of faith” to be lived to the full in the daily life of the Church and society.

“Every baptized person, by virtue of baptism itself, has the right to receive from the Church a teaching and formation which permits them to attain a true Christian life” (CT 14).

The Church helps to overcome situations of isolation and rejection, of which many can be the victims, by helping everyone, including persons with disabilities, to discover the inviolable dignity of every human person and of their rights: the right to life, to work, to education, the right to build a family, to take part in public life, the right to religious freedom.

Catechesis is a commitment for everyone, including persons with disabilities.  The goal of catechesis is not only participation in liturgical celebrations, but also participation in the life of the Church, her options and pastoral activities.

Persons with disabilities must also be considered active participants for the realization of the project of salvation entrusted by the Lord to the Church.  This calls for the full inclusion of people with disabilities in ecclesial life as responsible subjects, and with the same rights and duties and the same fundamental mission common to all the baptized, and also with a personal vocation to fulfill.

By means of persons with disabilities the Church forms the Christian community and overcomes secular society’s mentality of productivity and exclusion; by welcoming and accepting them fully she affirms the dignity of every human life from the moment of conception in the mother’s womb.

Persons with disabilities are prophets of how each of us may become in the future, when physical strength diminishes, when we may lose our autonomy, become totally dependent: even then we will want to be treated with dignity and respect and still be responsible for our life and take part in community events.

The final goal of catechesis is holiness. “The Father’s love for these the weakest of his children and the constant presence of Jesus with His Spirit are a guarantee that every person, however limited is capable of growing in holiness” (DGpC 1997). Catechesis therefore leads persons with disabilities to discover their call to live the discipleship in a responsible and active manner and to enrich the People of God with the gifts the Lord has entrusted to them to render resplendent his Bride.

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