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What Pope Francis asks us to do about
persons with special needs...with a
surprise twist!
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In #47, the pope re-emphasizes an earlier
Synod statement about people with special
needs: the bishops, he says, called
attention to:
"[F]amilies of
persons with special needs, where the
unexpected challenge of dealing with a
disability can upset a family’s
equilibrium, desires and expectations…
Families who lovingly accept the
difficult trial of a child with special
needs are greatly to be admired. They
render the Church and society an
invaluable witness of faithfulness to
the gift of life. In these situations,
the family can discover, together with
the Christian community, new
approaches, new ways of acting, a
different way of understanding and
identifying with others, by welcoming
and caring for the mystery of the
frailty of human life. People with
disabilities are a gift for the family
and an opportunity to grow in love,
mutual aid and unity…"
In quoting the bishops’ statement, Pope
Francis is showing his empathy for
families facing challenges, and there
is no one who will argue that the
presence of a child or other family
member with special needs presents
tremendous challenges—physical, mental,
emotional, spiritual.
But then comes the surprise twist:
immediately after quoting the bishops’
statement, the pope makes an unexpected
parallel: “Here I would stress that
dedication and concern shown to
migrants and to persons with special
needs alike is a sign of the Spirit.
Both situations are paradigmatic: they
serve as a test of our commitment to
show mercy in welcoming others and to
help the vulnerable to be fully a part
of our communities.”
What was that? People with special
needs… and migrants? They would seem to
have little to do with each other, at
least on the surface.
But go beneath the surface and they do.
Migrants represent the world’s special
needs children: they too present
challenges but are worthy of our love
and attention. They too are a witness
to the gift of life, and just as no
family can turn away a member with
special needs, so can the family of the
Church, the community of faith, refuse
to turn away these members with their
own special needs.
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Reaching Out to the
Vulnerable
Jeannette de
Beauvoir
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Novelist
Phyllis McGinley once wrote that the
reason the saints are saints is because
they actually do what the Gospel calls
us to do. They take it literally. Pope
Francis takes it literally, too, and
here he says that answering the
Gospel’s call means doing something
about the most vulnerable people in the
world. As long as we
think of those who are different from
us as the “other,” we’ll never be
answering the Gospel’s
call.
I can relate to both of these
categories of vulnerable people. I
moved to America from my native France
when I was in my early twenties. I
cannot compare my journey to that of
today’s migrants: I came out of choice,
not necessity. But even in that choice
I felt fear, the uncertainty of
acceptance, the strangeness of a
different language and culture; and
those feelings of alienation are
obviously compounded for those who are
forced today to flee their countries
through no choice of their own. Too
often they knock on doors that are
immediately closed in their faces.
Is
this what the Gospel calls us to
do?
I had a sister who died when she was
three months old. She had
hydrocephalus, and in the 1950s there
wasn’t very much that could be done for
her. If she had lived, she would have
been profoundly mentally retarded. I’ve
seen photographs of her: she looked
different. I have no doubt that, had
she become an adult, people would have
been frightened of her, avoided her,
perhaps made fun of her. Is that what the
Gospel calls us to do?
Pope Francis says no! As part of the
Year of Mercy, on June 12th the Church
celebrates a special jubilee for
persons with disabilities. In writing
about it, Jean Vanier noted that “a
society that honors only the powerful,
the clever, and the winners necessarily
belittles the weak.”
Are we doing it right? If you take the
Gospel literally, then you understand
that it turns everything that people
think—about the world, about wealth,
about power, and about what’s
important—completely on its head.
Others say blessed are the celebrities;
we say blessed are the meek. Others say
if you’re rich it’s a sign that God
loves you; we say it is the poor who
are the presence of Jesus among us.
Others say to hang out with people who
are like you; we say that the lame, the
crippled, and the vulnerable have a
place at our table.
Blessed James Alberione, co-founder of
the Daughters of St. Paul, counseled
that we should “always start with the
manger.” A baby was born in that manger
to a young couple who almost
immediately was forced by circumstances
into exile. This is where Jesus’ life
began, as a vulnerable migrant child.
If we start with the manger, then we
cannot close our eyes to what happened
immediately after it.
How can you take up this challenge,
articulated in the Gospels and
reiterated by Pope Francis? How can you
reach out to those with special needs,
those in exile, those who are refugees?
Find one single thing, today, right
now, that you can do: because that’s
the way the world is changed—one step
at a time.
Jeannette de
Beauvoir studied Church history and
liturgics at Yale Divinity School and
Boston University and is a marketing
copywriter for Pauline Books &
Media.
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From the Introduction, by Brian
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