Welcome

"The same Jesus who heard the cry for recognition from the people with disabilities of Judea and Samaria 2,000 years ago calls us, His followers, to embrace our responsibility to our own disabled brothers and sisters in the United States. The Catholic Church pursues its mission by furthering the spiritual, intellectual, moral and physical development of the people it serves. As pastors of the Church in America, we are committed to working for a deeper understanding of both the pain and the potential of our neighbors who are blind, deaf, mentally disabled, emotionally impaired, who have special learning problems, or who suffer from single or multiple physical disabilities—all those whom disability may set apart. We call upon people of good will to reexamine their attitudes toward their brothers and sisters with disabilities and promote their well-being, acting with the sense of justice and the compassion that the Lord so clearly desires. Further, realizing the unique gifts individuals with disabilities have to offer the Church, we wish to address the need for their integration into the Christian community and their fuller participation in its life."

THE TIME IS RIGHT!
As we begin the good work of bringing together people of multiple parishes we have a wonderful opportunity to fix some things that may have been lacking in regard to ministry to and with people within those groupings who live with a disability.
 
Statistics provided by the National Catholic Partnership on Disability show that 20% of the people within any parish’s boundaries live with a disabling condition, and one family in three includes someone who has significant limitations. Approximately 58% of those with disabilities have a physical limitation; slightly less than 9% have a sensory disability; around 5% have a cognitive disability involving either things like Down Syndrome or mental illness; with the remaining 28% having a serious medical condition. These statistics suggest that a parish with 1000 members needs to give consideration to the special needs of approximately 200 parishioners.
 
For various reasons, parishes in the past often placed the needs of some of our most faithful sisters and brothers on the back burner. Now is the perfect opportunity to correct those oversights. And if we don’t make the effort now, at the beginning of the process, you know as well as I do that five years from now our attention will be drawn elsewhere, those with special needs will be forgotten, and we will be in the same boat we are in now. This is the perfect time to get our house in order (disability-wise).

Read the rest here: The Time Is Right!
/documents/2019/1/Article%20for%20Pgh%20Cath%20Mag%20concerning%20%20%20%20moving%20forward%20during%20the%20On%20Mission%20initiative-1.pdf