Paralympics

[organist]

I think the Paralympics are very Catholic. They will change people's ideas about disability! It's rather like Lourdes on a grand scale and great to see so many people there form all over the world with different abilities taking a full part.

[JW]

I think you're right, Organist. Perceptions of disability have changed out of recognition since 1970 and the Paralympics will accelerate the process. However, I'm not sure about the Lourdes comparison: illness and disability are somewhat different conditions, although both can inhibit the body's usual function. Lourdes has, I suspect, more sick pilgrims than disabled. Also, the Paralympics focuses on what people can do instead of the disability, Lourdes is primarily a place of pilgrimage and intercession - to pray for help, if not for a cure. The Paralympics is a place of festival.

[Peter Jones]

I think the Paralympics are very Catholic. They will change people's ideas about disability!

I hope so.

http://www.zenit.org/article-35463?l=english

[JW]

Hopefully the Paralympics will also encourage us as a Church to continue removing barriers to disabled people, especially in liturgical ministry. The disabled tend to be people to whom we minister, rather than people who minister to us - which is a bit patronising. Despite some diocesan initiatives, relatively few parishes have disabled altar servers, readers and eucharistic special ministers. I wonder how many of those commissioned to lead funerals in Liverpool have disabilities?

I don't see too many disabled priests, bishops or cardinals around. Didn't there used to be something in Canon Law that required priests to be able bodied? To what extent is cerebral palsy or even learning difficulty a bar to the priesthood (St John Vianney "of average intelligence" nearly didn't make it)? No doubt the lawyers can put me right? Are dispensations needed and, if so, why?

I remember a lad being sent home from junior seminary c. 1964 because he had been diagnosed with a condition that would have caused blindness within 10 years - he was a really kind person and he had a great tenor voice.

So, on reflection, no I don't think the Paralympics is catholic as suggested in the first post - I would put forward the suggestion that, as with environmentalism, the church is trying to keep up with modern secular morality and jumping on the bandwagon.

[oopsorganist]

That is a funny thing then. In my family we have been debating how the Para Olympics could be integrated with the Olympics as inclusive practice versus segregation. In Learning Disabilities practice it is now the norm to join in with the wider community rather than seek out segregated services - in all areas of life and living.
Oops Jnr has a Cheer leading team member with one arm. She competes with the standard team at national competition level. And it is quite a dangerous sport.
We have a disabled PP by the way.

[organist]

I have encountered servers who were only able to ring the bell (and with prompting) or carry the cross and that is just great. I fully accept the differences between Lourdes and the paralympics - I was just thinking of how the sick and disabled are the centre of attention at Lourdes and how much they enjoy the experience of going there. It is true that a priest has to be able bodied although one now sees many elderly priests struggling with steps on the sanctuary - how many churches are really disabled friendly. I know a church where the organ was redesigned to accomodate disability. How many choirs have to cope with stairs? At All Saints West Dulwich the choir go up to the loft in a lift!

[FrGareth]

I don't see too many disabled priests, bishops or cardinals around. Didn't there used to be something in Canon Law that required priests to be able bodied? To what extent is cerebral palsy or even learning difficulty a bar to the priesthood...

I believe that in the old code of canon law there was such an ipediment for physical disabilities.

The 1983 code only specifies that mental disorders serious enough to prevent a person exercising ministry properly are reason enough to prevent ordination (1041.1) or stop an ordained person exercising their ministry (1041.2.2).

The late Bishop Langton Fox of Menevia used to attend the annual Charismatic Renewal Wales Conference and sit in his wheelchair giving blessings at communion time to non-communicants (in the 1990s, perhaps 25% of attendees at the conference were Anglicans).

In my student days at Wonersh, we had quite a few students with dyslexia helped through to ordination, a student from my own diocese with a prosthetic leg (now ordained) and a man with a severe visual impairment (not ordained, but not barred from ministry by reason of his limited visual ability).

[Peter Jones]

I notice that nobody - so far - has mentioned that God is not an equal opportunities employer.

[Nick Baty]

Appears to be about the most equal opportunity employer this is.