By Tony Rossi,
Director of Communications
When America magazine’s Delaney Coyne set out to explore the Catholic Church’s ministries to people with disabilities, she found St. Therese of Lisieux Church in Cresskill, New Jersey. Its pastor, Father Samuel Citero, O.Carm., was inspired by a trip he took to Lourdes in 2015. He witnessed the work of the American Special Children’s Pilgrimage Group, which offers trips to Lourdes for people with disabilities, providing them with specialized care. After seeing the community and fellowship that people with disabilities experienced there, he suggested starting Masses in a similar style at St. Therese. As a result, the church celebrates a monthly special needs Mass that welcomes both those with disabilities, as well as the wider parish community. People with disabilities serve in all parts of the Mass, from altar servers to lectors to the choir.
When she attended one of these special needs Masses, Delaney found herself deeply touched by its life-affirming and faith-affirming spirit. During a “Christopher Closeup” interview, she said, ”People with disabilities are often marginalized and isolated, and their families struggle to find resources because they’re also isolated. This is a way of bringing people together. It’s also led to growth in their parish. They have seen membership rise from people who are joining because of this ministry. It’s focused on personal relationships. They meet in the parish hall after the fact, and it cultivates this relationship between the pastor and community.”
Delaney also spoke with Lori Weider, chair of the National Catholic Partnership on Disabilities Committee on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (NCPD). She learned there has been “significant growth” in disability ministries in the last 20 years. The U.S. bishops are making this a priority. ”The flip side,” Delaney explained, “is that it needs to trickle down to the local level. So much of this work depends on individual relationships because all people with disabilities are different. What is true for someone who might have mobility issues and be in a wheelchair, is not true for someone who might have severe sensory issues, which is not true for someone who might have severe cognitive impairments. It has to happen at the parish level.”
Pope Francis’s 2020 statement that we shouldn’t deny people with disabilities the sacraments has also been a positive factor. Delaney said, “I spoke to multiple families who did experience that with their children. People who wanted to receive the Eucharist, the pastor said, ‘No, they don’t understand enough’ or ‘We can’t prove that they understand.’ Not all will want to receive, but many do. A lot of this is a shortcoming [because people with intellectual and developmental disabilities] say that they don’t understand. But without catechesis that can help them understand, it is essentially leaving a major portion of the Church high and dry and without access to that grace that they deserve by virtue of their baptism.”
Ultimately, people with disabilities need to be seen by all their fellow Catholics as ”members of the body of Christ,” Delaney concluded. “They’re not doing something different or something lesser or Catholic lite. They are brothers and sisters. They belong just as much as we do as neurotypical Catholics…Disability ministry is not something that is done specifically for people with disabilities. It’s done for the life of the Church as a whole. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t center people with disabilities in that ministry, but it’s incumbent on all of us.”
For free copies of the Christopher News Note FINDING YOUR WAY BACK TO GOD, write: The Christophers, 264 West 40th Street, Room 603, New York, NY 10018; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org
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