ROME (CNS) — To prevent abuse on all fronts, the Catholic Church must put people with disabilities at the center of its protection and ministry efforts, speakers said at an international protection conference in Rome.
The conference, held from 18-21 June and organised by the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, brought together experts from around the world in Rome to discuss the relationship between safeguarding and disability.
During the conference, the institute’s director, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, told the Catholic News Agency that the theme of this year’s conference was chosen to bridge the gap that exists between safeguarding, which refers to practices aimed at addressing and preventing mental, physical and sexual abuse, and caring for people with disabilities.
“Frameworks exist, but often they don’t really connect with the real needs of people on the ground, people who have been abused. So we’re here to learn from people with disabilities what their specific needs are and what the church can do as a key player in health systems around the world in implementing and infiltrating the culture with the different models that we have,” he told CNS on June 18.
The conference began with opening remarks by Cardinal Pietro Parolin and included a keynote address by Vatican Secretary of State Sheila Hollins, a founding member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and founder of Books Beyond Words, a nonprofit that publishes wordless books for people with disabilities on a range of topics from relationships to surviving abuse.
“People with disabilities may be a demographic minority, but they are at significantly higher risk and, if it were easier for them to disclose, they may actually represent the majority of those who are abused,” she said.
Laureen Lynch Ryan, coordinator of deaf ministries for the Archdiocese of Washington, speaks at the “Interdisciplinary Studies of Human Dignity and Care” conference on safeguarding and disability, organized by the Institute of Anthropology of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on June 18, 2024. (CNS photo/Courtesy of Pontifical Gregorian University)
She told CNS that many “unconscious biases” put people with disabilities at risk of abuse, including the perception that people with disabilities will not abuse them because they have a disability. Disabled people also face the added barrier of not being “listened to, explained or understood” about their abuse, she said.
Hollins, a Catholic with five adult children with disabilities, said these biases and barriers can arise from viewing disabled people as “different” within the church, which can lead to churches continuing to structurally exclude them, such as by not making space for wheelchair users in their congregations or holding separate masses for neurodifferent people.
To instill sensitivity to the experience of disability in the Church, Hollins suggested, it is important for all seminarians to “get to know disabled people, their families, their lives, and continue to get to know them as members of their community.”
“I think getting priests to know about people with disabilities can actually make a pretty big difference,” she said.
Laureen Lynch Ryan, coordinator of deaf ministries for the Archdiocese of Washington, who spoke in American Sign Language at the conference, told CNS through a sign language interpreter that while there has been a lot of research on the disability community and abuse, “there has been very little research on abuse and the church, particularly within the deaf community.”
Furthermore, she stressed that the development of safeguarding policy must include direct input from disabled and deaf people. Lynch-Ryan said safeguarding training would be “driven through the hearing system” and developed by people with no experience of working with deaf or disabled people.
Marianne Barth, a course designer at the University of Dayton and director of the Deaf Catholic Youth Initiative of the Americas, said the conference is key to exploring ways to overcome barriers to access for people with disabilities, particularly “the main barrier we face is communication.”
Through an interpreter, Barth told CNS that his presentation at the conference was aimed at explaining “the theory behind language deprivation, language fluency disorders,” which he said “really impacts deaf children who have been abused.”
Sheila Hollins, founding member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and founder of Books Beyond Words, spoke at the Conference on Protection and Disability, “Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care,” organized by the Institute of Anthropology of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on June 18, 2024. (CNS photo/Courtesy of Pontifical Gregorian University)
She said there needed to be a framework for what hearing people can do to protect deaf people and to help those who have been abused, “because when someone tries to come forward, another barrier is whether they can express what they went through, and we have to be there to help them get through it.”
Daphne Aida Zapata Prat, a psychologist at Peru’s Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, said prejudice against people with disabilities prevents society and churches from reaching out to them and taking into account their needs to be fully integrated into the community.
For example, she told CNS, there is a widespread myth among Peruvians that disabilities are “God’s punishment” for sins or mistakes made by the family, and “many families have prejudice against children with disabilities.”
Combating these attitudes is “a big challenge for the church,” Zapata said. “How can the church change the image of God and help people understand that disability is not a punishment?”
The church’s response, she said, must not only place people with disabilities at the center of church life but also consider “the kind of message and image of God that we express and share with others.”
Jesuit Father Justin Glynn, legal adviser for the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus and a blind man, said that as society becomes increasingly individualistic and meritocratic, the Church has a vital role to play in maintaining the sense of community that is central to the disability experience.
“The world of people with disabilities is a world of interdependence,” he told CNS. “We may need help in different ways, but we can also provide it.”
Similarly, he said, Catholics who profess the communion of saints “do not believe that salvation is personal.”
“We are a people who are actually committed to one another in Christ,” Father Glynn said, “and disability is a classic testament to that.”