Franciscan at Home

For Persons with Physical Disablilities

Catechesis for persons who have physical disabilities is not that difficult. Only in rare cases will catechists need to make small adaptations in lesson content, unlike when preparing lessons for those with some cognitive difficulty. The greatest challenge that catechists face in preparing lessons for persons with physical disabilities has to do with making sure that the catechetical materials and the facilities are as accessible as possible.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops writes, concerning the need to welcome persons with disabilities:

Since the parish is the door to participation in the Christian experience, it is the responsibility of both pastors and laity to assure that those doors are always open. Costs must never be the controlling consideration limiting the welcome offered to those among us with disabilities, since provision of access to religious functions is a pastoral duty.[i]

While we agree that our parish offerings should be accessible, every catechetical facility, school, or parish may have its own difficulties in becoming more accessible. The National Directory for Catechesis states, “As much as possible, persons with disabilities themselves should guide catechetical personnel in adapting curricula to their particular needs.”[ii] For catechesis with children, parents will be our best resource. In order to be truly welcoming, though, we need to find and meet with the disabled persons in our community. Many times we might believe there are no persons with disabilities in our parishes, simply because we don’t see them. This is highly unlikely. It is quite possible that if we investigate, we may discover that the parish is in fact physically inaccessible.

Soon after promulgating Humanae Vitae in 1968, Blessed Pope Paul VI stated that what was needed for a fuller understanding of the encyclical was a fuller, more adequate anthropology. His successor, Pope Saint John Paul II, would later supply this fuller, more adequate anthropology when he expounded and developed his philosophical and theological anthropology of the human person. One needs only recall the series of Wednesday audiences wherein he developed what we now call the “theology of the body.” [i] Pope Benedict XVI later picked up a similar theme when he expounded a profound theological anthropology in Caritas in Veritate (June 9, 2009), while situating the human person in proper relation to the Trinity and to one’s neighbor in Deus Caritas Est (December 25, 2005). Pope Francis was indebted to these doctrinal developments of his predecessors when he came to write his most recent encyclical, Laudato Si (LS), a debt he acknowledges in the encyclical’s opening paragraphs (3-6). However, Laudato Si has a different emphasis, expressed in the opening words, which come from a canticle written in Old Italian and composed by St. Francis of Assisi in 1225: “Canticle of the Creatures.” By opening with this canticle, Pope Francis introduces the rich philosophical and theological anthropology of his predecessors into the relational context of the earth’s environment, which is contiguous with human life in the body. A Fundamental Human Ecology For example, Pope Francis writes in Laudato Si, “Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine ecology” (155). Far from being a form of somatolatry, or worship of the human body, Pope Francis here affirms the share we have as embodied persons in the surrounding physical environment. He gleans this insight from the account of creation in the Book of Genesis (chapters 1-3) where “in the beginning” human life was “grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself” (66). Then the Holy Father continues: “According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin” (ibid.). This division—within ourselves, with God, with one another, and with the earth[ii]—accounts for Pope Francis’ rather sobering judgment that the earth, “our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” (21). This is significant because it helps us to understand how the “human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation” (48). As it goes with ourselves, so it goes with the environment; if we neglect ourselves and our relationships to one another and God, then predictably neglect of the physical environment follows. A wholesome human ecology, which acknowledges and accepts the profound “relationship between human life and the moral law” (155), is a prerequisite for a wholesome environment. Neglect and abuse of the earth, therefore, are best explained by the deterioration in human ecology, as when the poorest and weakest among us are neglected and forgotten. Supplying in justice the proper care due to the human body would include a whole host of corporal works of mercy wherein we clothe the naked, feed the hungering, dress wounds, and supply adequate housing to the homeless. How we understand ourselves is reflected in how we treat one another and the environment. Consequently, the “acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father… whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation” (155).

If you walked into your local grocery store and asked the average person in America, “What does the Catholic Church stand for?” what would be the response? Many would focus on the moral issues: “The Catholic Church is against abortion, against contraception, and against ‘gay marriage.’” Almost no one would say: “The Catholic Church stands for God who is love and who created us out of love; who invites us to share in his love; who sent his Son to die for us out of love; and who wants to forgive us no matter what we’ve done and heal us so that we can be happy in this life and with him forever in heaven.” God’s love and mercy are at the very heart of the Gospel; yet, most people, even many Catholics, don’t know this central point of our faith. This is one reason that Pope Francis has called for the extraordinary Jubilee called “The Year of Mercy.” The Priority of Mercy Pope Francis is driven by a pressing desire to bring God’s mercy to “the outermost fringes of society.”[1] Like Christ, whose public ministry was marked by his constant search for the weak, suffering, and lost souls in his day, Pope Francis says that the Church should be continually going out to touch as many people as possible with God’s mercy. “How much I desire that the year to come will be steeped in mercy, so that we can go out to every man and woman, bringing the goodness and tenderness of God! May the balm of mercy reach everyone, both believers and those far away, as a sign that the Kingdom of God is already present in our midst!”[2] How effective are we as witnesses to God’s mercy? We might hold to the right doctrines, right liturgical practices, and right moral principles, but how much do people encounter God’s loving mercy in us and in our parishes, apostolates, or individual lives?

When it comes to the media, most of us sense a problem, but what is it? Is media itself the problem? Or is the problem limited to the sometimes objectionable content it can convey, such as gratuitous violence and unchastity? Or is media use in moderation fine and only a lack of moderation that causes a problem? Also, how do we, as Christians, discern the best ways to engage media technology? How are we forming ourselves, our loved ones, and those we influence in the everyday application and consumption of new media? In this article we will examine some core principles to apply in our stewardship of these “gifts of God.”

El número sorprendente de Bautismos, Primeras Comuniones y Confirmaciones entre los hispanos / latinos en las parroquias católicas a lo largo y ancho de los Estados Unidos es quizás la declaración más elocuente acerca de su emergencia como población mayoritaria dentro de la Iglesia Católica de los Estados Unidos. De hecho, según el Centro para la Investigación Aplicada al Apostolado (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate - CARA), el 54% de los católicos que nacieron después de 1982 son hispanos / latinos. Otro número sorprendente es que solo el 3% de los niños hispanos / latinos asisten a escuelas católicas. Puesto que las escuelas católicas puedan ser el medio más efectivo para generar una identidad y liderazgo católicos, este bajo porcentaje nos conduce a la pregunta: ¿Hoy en día, la Iglesia en los Estados Unidos, ¿cómo transmite la fe al segmento más grande de su población?

La respuesta corta a esta pregunta reside en los ministerios catequéticos que se efectúan en las más de cinco mil parroquias donde se celebra la Liturgia dominical en español. En su gran mayoría, éstas son las parroquias donde los hispanos / latinos más se sienten en casa y donde los niños reciben su Bautismo, Primera Comunión y Confirmación. La organización de los ministerios catequéticos varía en estas parroquias. Algunas de las diferencias incluyen los requisitos del programa, los libros que se utilizan, los costos y la duración del programa - variaciones que pueden influenciar la decisión de las familias en elegir el programa catequético parroquial en el cual inscribir a sus hijos.

Culture exercises immense influence in how we live. Culture shapes our relationships, work, leisure, and ultimately our convictions about what is most important to us. Catechizing for cultural impact involves the extensive effort, as Pope Francis explains, of “translating the gift of God into [one’s] own life.”[i] Catechesis aims at concretizing a person’s faith convictions into a way of life, without which these convictions will remain incomplete. As Pope St. John Paul II made clear: “The synthesis between culture and faith is not only a demand of culture, but also of faith… A faith that does not become culture is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”[ii] Drawing upon the need for this synthesis of faith and culture, I would like to suggest four ways in which catechesis can help form a Christian way of life. This can happen by: 1) inviting a response or choice to live differently, 2) forming patterns of prayer, 3) helping those being catechized to develop virtuous habits to live out the faith, and 4) looking to the saints and members of our own communities for inspiration and direction. In the catechumenal model, we can see the impetus for Christians to form a new way of life in the redditio, which follows the imparting of the Creed (the traditio) in the catechumenal process. The General Directory for Catechesis (GDC) recognizes that the redditio consists not only in the memorization and recitation of the Creed, but overflows into “the response of the subject during the catechetical journey and subsequently in life.”[iii] In response to the gift of faith, one must render one’s entire life back to God, ordering all things to him.

Geek culture is a true culture. “Geeks”—as I am applying the term—are not simply a group of people who love sci-fi, fantasy, or horror genre media; rather geek culture represents a social grouping of those who make that love a major part of their identity and community formation.

Some members of geek culture are not open to the Gospel because they perceive a hostility and rejection by the Christian community. Yet this culture expresses aesthetic and psychological needs that can only be fulfilled in the Catholic faith. Geeks not only belong in the Church, as all belong in the Church, but the Church itself can be seen as the apotheosis of geek culture.

Some geeks feel alienated because they may be socially awkward and different, and are drawn to genre media because it often expresses profound alienation and loneliness. Another reason geeks can feel isolated is that their genre media reinforce their social isolation by making it into a common identity-point. To remedy this sense of isolation, they will look for a community of people with similar speculative media-passion and a similar sense of alienation. If geeks see the Church as a manifestation of that exclusionary mainstream culture, they will be very difficult to evangelize.

The remarkable number of Baptisms, First Communions, and Confirmations among Hispanics/Latinos in Catholic parishes across the nation is perhaps the most eloquent statement about their emergence as a majority population within the Catholic Church in the United States.

The idea that “cultural capital,” in the sense of cultivated dispositions of mind and body, might play a role in catechesis is often resisted from two extreme positions. First, there are those who argue that faith formation is merely propositional. We simply need to teach people the Catechism. This we might call the opposition from the right. Second, there are those who instinctively tie the concept of “cultural capital” to the class-war and are aggressively hostile to the idea that some cultures and what we call “cultural formation” might be superior to others. This we might call the opposition from the left. It is often found in liberation theology circles where, for example, knowledge of more than one language or an ability to play a musical instrument, is associated with having had a bourgeois education.
In my first book Culture and the Thomist Tradition,[i] I was critical of the opposition from the right and did not really address the opposition from the left because I thought that battle had been won by Josef Ratzinger in the 1980s. The central principle of my book, which might be called a synthesis of the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre with the theology of Josef Ratzinger, is that if you want to catechize people, you need to give them an experience of a fully functional Catholic culture and not merely present them with doctrinal propositions (though these are important and have their place) and certainly not try to market the Catholic faith to them by transposing it into the idioms and practices of contemporary popular culture. Ratzinger described the latter practice, which was hugely popular in the 1960s and 70s and has been making a come-back among liberation theologians, as treating the Church as if it were a haberdashery shop with its windows needing to be re-dressed and decorated with each passing fashion season. What MacIntyre and Ratzinger have both argued, in different ways, is that the ethos of Christian institutions needs to be governed by practices that embody a Christian logic or meaning. If you feed people doctrine but the whole realm of praxis is running on a different logic (for example, a utilitarian logic or an economic rationalist logic), then the Holy Spirit can’t breathe, grace is suffocated, because there is a logical disjunction between the theory and the practice. God created us in such a way that even a five-year-old can sense that something is not quite adding up, even if the five-year-old is unable to explain the problem in terms of the relationship between logos and ethos. In theological language distinctions are often made between the “logos of love” (which is inherently Christian) and the logos of the machine (which is inherently atheistic). So, a preliminary MacIntyrean point is that if you want to catechize people it helps to expose them to a milieu where the set of social practices are running on the logos of love.