The International Year of Disabled Persons and the Church

Millie Henke (brittle-bone disease)

"I'd like to say a few words about what the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) has meant for me. You 'might think that's kind of funny because I've been living with disabilities all my life, of course, it's very obvious. But I think this past year has brought together some of my own thinking and has made me see a lot more clearly in a lot more areas. There have been a lot of people who've really supported and been with me these last years. But I guess when I first started especially in the working world after I'd come out of school and really wanted to prove myself to myself, I felt I could best do that in a working world. Most people had just kind of thought that I would maybe go on welfare, and I could have, but that was the last thing in my mind at the time. But in going into the working world I really I guess I tried hard. I tried to be the best that I could in whatever I did. And at times it was really frustrating. It was really difficult because the expectations that I set for myself was to try to be like everybody else. To try to be like every able-bodied person I knew. I spent a good part of 'my life trying to be like somebody else. And that was kind of perpetuated by people I knew. It was like you had to be someone else in order to really succeed. And a lot of that was my own problem. I've been supported by a lot of beautiful people. So a lot of that was myself, but I really tried to be someone else. And I was very lonely for a long time. And that loneliness would certainly come and go but it was very much a part of my life because try as I might I never was exactly like anyone else. And all of a sudden these last years, during the Seventies, during the Year in meeting and talking to lots and lots of people, unique people, that every one of us has a disability. And I had never thought of it that way. I'm not thinking and I mean I'm not saying that that's a great thing. But for me it was a great leveler: that we're all struggling. My disabilities are obvious. But maybe not everyone's is so obvious and maybe my struggles are the struggles of every one of you in some way. That you have the same struggles that I do, in different ways, but none-the-less they are struggles. And for me that is an opening that I have not known before. And it's good. And I think if this has brought a new awareness this Year to any of you, or to all of you, or to each of you, or to one of you, then that might be true that we're in some way alike. You're not fearful of me and I don't have to be fearful of you. But I can be my person and you can be yours and we can come together. That's beautiful."

Eunice Fiorito (blind)

"Ask yourself what your particular church, congregation, denomination has done, acted upon, or said about this Year."

"... for the most part people with disabilities such as blindness, visual impairment, deafness, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairments, mobility impairment, physical impairment, and mental impairment, as well as emotional impairments are people first. People who want, people who must, and people who will be partakers and contributors to life. That means right there in their local churches. How many churches here have an interpreter? How many churches in this city have built ramps? How many churches have hymnals that are in Braille? All of these things are symptomatic as to how we really are welcomed or seen as true participants in the church life."

"Any person... who is in a wheelchair or on crutches would not resist being carried up a flight of stairs to church if he or she really felt that they were welcome in ALL of the church's activities, really and truly."

"...let us see what positive influence the Church could have in the lives of people with disabilities, and in the lives of its own congregation."

"How many times have you who are clergy said to Mrs. X or Mrs. Y or Mr. Z who is in a wheelchair, who may have a hard time seeing, who may have a hard time hearing: Oh, you don't have to come to church. We'll come to you. And that's fine. But that single thing may enable inaction, may enable that person not to truly participate, to come out. Particularly people who become disabled have one heck of a hard time coming back, if you would. He or she may need your help. Not only helping them in getting into the life of the church but really back into living."

"Those of you who are of the Church, who are not disabled, must take it upon yourselves to develop a working partnership with us. You must in turn with us work on a strategy - or should I say a plan - and strategies so that we can impact and be a part of all of the Church's activities from training in the seminaries to participants as clergy, to active contributing members of the Church community to the degree that we want to participate."

Sue Latcha (cerebral palsy)

"... physical barriers prevent people from reaching one another and sometimes, they keep people from reaching God."

"I have known persons who do not practice their religion anymore for one reason or another. One reason being a lack of access to the place of worship. If it were not for a person or two in my own life where I come from in Detroit I might have, unfortunately, joined this group of people."

"Think of barriers and their effects in this way: God has made some persons different by giving them a disability. I am called to live my life as a disabled person and to touch others by being the person that I am. Many of God's disabled people don't have an opportunity, as I do, to worship Him in His house."

Ken Williams (paraplegic)

"A lot of things, a lot of needs, a lot of rights that disabled people should have and should get can be influenced a great deal by you if in fact you put heads together and formulate plans and strategies that can be effectively used to overturn some of the existing laws, existing situations that confront people with disabilities."

"I know there are many clergymen, church people who have talents carpentry talents - are very efficient with hammers and nails. You can build ramps, you can pour cement, you can make ramps in the community for people with disabilities."

"I've thought of church people going around at Christmas time, singing Christmas carols and passing out cookies -I thought of that as not so much helping those who are disabled, but was more geared toward helping one's conscience."

"...when we band together to try to make the total community - not only Chicago -but this whole nation more accessible to people with disabilities, I think you're enriching the nation as a whole."

Rolf Erhmann (paraplegic)

"It is humiliating to go to Mass once a month and be carried in and carried out by people who look at you with weeping eyes and great pity. Remember that I'm a Catholic. I'm a member of the Body of Christ. And I want to participate in my Church. That's why I'm a reader, that's why I'm a lector. . .that's why I want to go to communion, that's why I want to go to the meetings which we have. That's why I want my children to have the example of a father who goes to Church. I have five to teach."

"And I ask you as clergymen see to it that you make it possible to for us to participate as fully as we can in the Church - in its functions and its activities. In vespers, in Masses, in meetings, in anything that goes on in a parish because we are part of the parish. We are part of the Body of Christ, not somebody set apart."

This memorial and the excerpts contained within are taken from a Program on the International Year of Disabled Person (IYDP) which was held at K.A.M. Isaiah Congregation. The Program was organized by Rev. Flavian Dougherty, CP, of the Stauros Office at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

The Presenters

Ms. Eunice Fiorito, M.S.W. - A native Chicagoan and graduate of Loyola University, became blind at the age of 16. Founded and directed the Mayor's Office for the Handicapped in New York City and assisted in founding the American Coalition of citizens with Disabilities (ACCD). Is presently Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Education in Washington, D.C.

Sue Latcha - Born with cerebral palsy and using a wheelchair all her life, she has attained international recognition for her athletic achievements. Full-time student working toward a Masters degree in counseling. Is an avid crusader for the rights of disabled persons, and conducts clinics on mobility awareness and self-defense for disabled persons. Serves on Mayor Young's Advisory Committee for Handicapped Concerns in Detroit, Michigan.

Ken Williams - An active paraplegic and a native of Chicago. Has a Masters degree in Rehabilitation Administration. Currently working for Access Living, counseling disabled persons who seek to live independently. Primary efforts are directed toward finding accessible housing for disabled persons, and is also involved in peer counseling programs pioneered in Chicago by Access Living.

Rolf H. Ehrmann - Confined to a wheelchair, and president of an organization entitled Disabled Adult Residential Enterprises (DARE). Recently received a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for building a set of subsidized accessible units just down the street from the Catholic Theological Union. Is active in Church activities in his parish, Immaculate Conception, here in Chicago.

Editor's Note:

• Here is the first issue of our STAUROS NOTEB0OK. Since we have had numerous requests for copies of this issue, we have had it reprinted.
• Stauros has been deeply involved in the International Year of Disabled Persons. Through that experience, we have come to realize that religious organizations in general have failed to provide leadership in dispelling faulty attitudes towards disabled persons, and in removing the barriers which prevent the "full participation" of these persons in all aspects of life. I intended in this first Notebook to present some facts on this, but in the midst of my preparation, a beloved co-worker, disabled since birth, died. This occurred shortly after she had helped to organize and program on the IYDP - one directed principally to clergy and divinity students. Rather than provide my cold facts, I am sending the words from the hearts and voices of those disabled persons who made presentations at that program. As one of those presenters, Eunice Fiorito put it: "In reality, the attitudes of non-disabled persons, the reaction excited by our disability and the consequent behavior are the principle source of suffering to us."
• Millie Henke was born in Florissant, Missouri, on June 28, 1939. After attending Oklahoma State Tech, she worked as a secretary at the Passionist Seminary in Warrenton, Mo. In 1969, Millie came to Chicago and worked at the Catholic Theological Union, and from 1976 until her death on January 1, 1982, was registrar for the school and a vital part of its daily life.
• It was most significant that Millie ended her life on New Year's Day 1982 since that day brought to a close the year "which meant so much to me", to use her own words. 1981 was the International Year of Disabled Persons, and it symbolized something she longed for all her life: that persons with disabilities would be recognized as PERSONS, and be given the opportunities for full participation in all aspects of life.
• Millie helped to plan the November 18th program at the K.A.M. Isaiah Isreal Synagogue in honor of the International Year of Disabled Persons. It was a thrill for her that something of this nature was being held in Hyde Park, and for the benefit in particular of the faculty and students of CTU and the Chicago Cluster of Theological Schools. In the midst of preparations for the program, Millie had to be hospitalized for a recurrence of cancer. One of her major anxieties at that time was that she would possibly miss the program. Fortunately, she did not. She not only attended, and spoke at it, but she discovered that the Program was dedicated to her. That gave her, as she said, "a kind of joy I never had before."