Let’s Raise the roof above Jesus

by Chris Townsend · August 30, 2015

One of the challenges any pastor (in the Catholic sense) faces is enabling and encouraging a community to be a welcome space for all who need to be there. This effort covers not only the familiar and regular parishioners, but also those who need to be part of the Church in a bigger sense.

A newly-wed couple processes down the aisle in a New Orleans church in June. In his column, Fr Chris Townsend argues that parishes often unwittingly exclude people with disability. (Photo: Peter Finney Jr, Catholic Herald)

How do we, as community, create the welcome for persons with disability?

I admit that in my current parish assignment, I haven�t succeeded in this effort, for a number of reasons.

One is the difficulty in working out who these persons are. Disability covers a huge range of categories�as evidenced by the categories used in Sports for Persons with disability. My mother and uncle are both deaf in varying degrees. I have parishioners in wheelchairs, some with amputations, some with profound cognitive disabilities and some with debilitating depressions and addictions.

So the first question is how we characterise a person with a disability. The bottom line is that in some way the whole Church is a bunch of persons with disabilities of some sort. It�s from this beginning, then, that we can begin to break down any form of �us and them� language and practice.

Let�s limit our present discussion to dealing as a Church with physical barriers to persons with disability. With Sr Theresa Marie Heany OP, director of SPRED, we suggested putting architects and pastors in wheelchairs so that they could get a perspective on just how difficult it is for a person with a physical disability to move in many church and parish spaces.

You see, it�s not just about throwing a ramp down the stairs. In fact, most retrofitted ramps I have seen in worship and parish spaces would be more likely to cause grievous bodily harm if used�more like racetracks than carefully considered commitments to inclusion.

Then, where do you place a person in a wheelchair or with a buggy or a zimmerframe? Generally we place them with everyone else. Or we ask them to fit in wherever we can squeeze them. They block up aisles, have to move for Communion processions, are so �disruptive�. That belies a deep-seated attitude to persons with disability that needs examination and challenge.

In the story of the paralytic let down from the roof in front of Jesus in Capernaum (Mk 2.3; Lk 5:19) I see a number of lessons that the whole Church has to face in dealing with inclusive ministry and space.

The first thing that strikes me is the desire of the friends for this man to experience what they have experienced. They know about Jesus and desire both healing and inclusion for their friend. So often, persons with disabilities need to be sought out and brought out, invited into God�s space.

The next idea is that the crowds often get in the way� oh yes, parishes are often crowd-thought in behaviour. The serious inclusive thinker must think around the physical and attitude barriers that �normal-functioning� persons (�persons with normality�?) place. Barriers such as costs and space and planning.

In Capernaum, the friends simply broke down the roof of Jesus� house. They made a radical hole in the roof and forced attention from the Lord and the crowd. In his house!

In his epic tale of living with disability, My Left Foot, Christy Brown tells of how his mother demanded that his father, a builder, make space for their disabled son. One day his mother just started building. She just did something. I picture the scene of Jesus speaking to the crowds and dust and light raining down on him as the physical structure is made to conform with the desire of the friends.

With this in mind, put yourself in a wheelchair and try to use the toilets (toilets for persons with normality or toilets for persons with disability). First try to manoeuvre into them. Then try to clear the accumulation of parish-important junk that often gets stored in the toilets, as �We don�t have anyone disabled here, Father…�. Then try returning to the worship and participation spaces.

We often unconsciously exclude persons with disability by the spaces the able-bodied allocate to persons with disability: aisles, corners and so on. Imagine if you are always at the edge in a church that preaches inclusion?

My mother is an expert lip-reader. She needs to see the reader and the priest to hear. Where is your microphone? Where are the servers? Often right in front of the lector or priest�

Inclusive ministry is not a choice or an option�it is the very core of the Church.

Fr Chris Townsend is the priest in charge at Queenswood parish, Pretoria.