Office for Persons with Disabilities
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Mission Statement
We represent the Diocese of Metuchen under the leadership of the Bishop to effectively answer the call to minister with and for persons challenged by a special disability. Committed to the implementation of the Pastoral Statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on People with Disabilities, our immediate goals include:
- Facilitating barrier-free access to all diocesan buildings, especially churches.
- Addressing the need for people with disabilities to have access to the Sacraments, especially the Sacraments of Initiation.
- Ensuring full participation in the life of the Church for all persons with disabilities.
As disciples of Jesus Christ called to live and proclaim the Good News, we are committed to the work of the New Evangelization through:
- supporting and encouraging a rich liturgical life within parish communities that includes persons with disabilities.
- advocating and implementing the social teachings of the Church, especially those that pertain to people with disabilities.
- enhancing the faith formation of children, youth, and adults with disabilities.
- enabling leadership development through the application of learning principles that includes a positive outlook toward people with disabilities.
- being respectful of the possibility for inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of ministry in the Diocese of Metuchen.
- collaborating within the Diocesan structure and with parish leaders and ministers to effectively meet the needs of people with disabilities within parish communities and beyond.
- providing resources, training, and communication necessary for effective ministry in parish communities for and with persons with disabilities.
- providing a supportive environment that favors working with and collaborating with people challenged by a disability.
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Questions for Father Hillier (The Catholic Spirit, 2014)
In August 2014, the Bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen announced that Father John G. Hillier would serve as his personal liaison to the disabled and oversee all matters pertaining to disability services and related ministries. Accordingly, Father Hillier’s responsibilities would include implementation of the USCCB documents on Persons with Disabilities, with particular attention focused on barrier free access to parish and other church buildings, access to the sacraments for the disabled, and helping facilitate opportunities for disabled people to fully participate in the life of the Church in the Diocese of Metuchen.
The bishop told pastors, “I ask that you support Fr. Hillier in his efforts to help our diocesan family provide more effective outreach to the disabled and greater sensitivity to the needs of our disabled brothers and sisters, as we become more aware of their many gifts.”
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Most parishes provide outreach to homebound by having parish visitation teams, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion or members of the clergy visit those who are unable to leave their homes. Many of the homebound are in fact disabled.
Some parishes, however, have a more organized ministry to the disabled, the fruit of which includes having members of the so-called disabled community participate in the life of the Church as altar servers, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, readers, members of the parish pastoral council and other such public service.
Still, there exists a void in most parishes in the sense that active outreach to the disabled community is nonexistent. Whether we are talking about physical disabilities such as the blind or hearing impaired or wheelchair bound (like myself) or developmental disabilities, there are, for the most part, no meaningful accommodations available in most parishes. Of course, there are exceptions.
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I was pleased that over 90% of the parishes responded to the survey but disappointed that a handful of parishes did not.
Essentially, the survey indicated that most all the "church" buildings and most parish halls in our diocese have ramps to accommodate wheelchairs etc. Unfortunately, not all have bathroom facilities to facilitate barrier-free access. As well, unlike the chapel in the diocesan center which is totally accessible for wheelchairs, most sanctuaries in our parish churches are not barrier-free. As such, priests, deacons or lay people who happen to be in a wheelchair would not be able to make their way into the sanctuary to serve in a liturgical ministry.
I was also surprised to discover that most parishes do not have electronic devices to offer those who are hearing impaired and, aside from a couple of parishes that have "larger-type" missalettes, there really isn't anything of significance to help those who are blind or visually challenged.
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The foundational document is a 1978 publication (published again in 1989) by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops called Pastoral Statement of U.S. Catholic Bishops on Persons with Disabilities. Another 5 documents deal with themes ranging from catechesis to helpful hints in welcoming with persons with a variety of disabilities.
There is no single document that demands immediate attention. All work together. The special needs of disabled people at any given time will dictate the resource material that we will consult or implement.
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That is a huge question.The greatest obstacle is one of attitude. There are "attitudinal barriers" that continue to exist within and outside the Church. People need to generally stop treating people with special needs as if they are non-persons. It is not unusual that for some people to assume what a so-called disabled person can or cannot do. This includes matters of how a disabled man, woman or child can or cannot participate in the life of the Church. Such attitudes dissuade some priests and pastoral ministers from inviting a blind person from reading at Mass or a person in a wheelchair from serving as a Communion Minister or a developmentally delayed teenager from being an altar server or member of the youth group.And then there is the matter of attending Mass when a church is not equipped with a listening device to enable a person who hard of hearing be able to hear God's Word proclaimed or the homily preached. This is a personal one for me because my dad is extremely hard of hearing with no hearing ability in one ear and only 20% in the other. A convert to Catholicism and a seriously faithful Catholic, he once told me that for more than 50 years of faithfully attending Sunday Mass, he has never heard the sacred scriptures proclaimed or a homily preached.And then there is the matter of attending a parish social function when the parish hall is not wheelchair accessible. Or, as a priest, going to a Church for Mass only to discover that the sanctuary is not accessible for a wheelchair.In short, in order for a person with special needs to be able to fully participate or even "minimally participate" in the life of the Church, there must first be a demonstration of good will on the part of those charged with extending an invitation to participate. Sometimes the non-verbal cues (such as no accommodations for parking a handicapped van or no "disabled" bathroom facilities or no ramp to access the parish building or no access to the sanctuary) speak volumes.
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That is a difficult question. However, I would say that one opportunity, often missed, is that of priests and deacons addressing some of the misconceptions, challenges and difficulties associated with living with a disability, as well as, other related matters in Sunday homilies. Like "able-bodied" people, there are no two "dis-abled" people exactly alike. As well, there are a multitude of disabilities over a whole range of general categories including physical, mental, psychological, and emotional. These take on other themes including: Hearing Impaired, Visually Impaired, Developmentally Delayed, Speech and Language, Psychiatric, Medical Anomalies and the Physically Challenged.In fact, a recent statistic I heard was that 15% of the population live with a disability or "special need" as some like to call it.Another matter related to this is that all our churches ought to be open to people with various disabilities. If members of the disabled community were more actively and obviously involved life of the Church, the many gifts of disabled people would be all the more apparent. There ought to be an apostolate in every parish that actively seeks out those who are disengaged from the life of the Church because they feel alienated due to a special challenge or disability. As well, our parish communities ought to provide the best of Christian outreach to our disabled brothers and sisters. Sometimes, for a disabled person, going to the store to buy milk can become an insurmountable task. And then there is the matter of driving a fellow parishioner to Sunday Mass or driving a disabled person from the local community (Catholic or non-Catholic) to a doctor's appointment. In this regard, I am told that these acts of service are problematic when we officially sanction them as a parish or faith community due to matters of liability in the event that the driver is involved in an automobile accident.Another challenge that disabled people need to deal with is the matter of being alienated and ignored or, even worse, bullied. Many disabled people have too many hidden scars due to the emotional or psychological abuse that they endure. I am ashamed to say that such ill-treatment toward people with special needs take place both within and outside of the Church -- I am saddened to say that I, myself, have been a target of bullying by a fellow cleric. As well, there are those who still have the unfortunate feeling that they feel cheated when a disabled person and not a so-called "able body" person serves them. I have also experienced this, in the sense that, there are those few who are angry, disappointed or otherwise disturbed when they come for Mass and find themselves in the presence of a priest who is in a wheelchair and not standing upright. I cannot help but think that such people may have likewise enjoyed the company of Jesus when he was involved in his day to day ministry but would not have wanted to be anywhere near Calvary to witness Jesus being disabled on the cross.Such behavior is unacceptable in the home of God's children, the Church.Ironically, Jesus spent much, if not most of his time, with people who we would describe as disabled including "the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame" Luke 14:21. (to use the terminology of first century Palestine as recorded in the sacred Scriptures).
Then there are our disabled vets who come back to us with broken bodies after having served their country and helped us in our brokenness following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. We hail them as wounded warriors but often these same men and women must endure discrimination related to their disability.And then there are the greeters as Walmart or other outlets that hire disabled people. So many of these people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are treated like non-entities by passers by.
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Jennifer Ruggiero (Director of the Office of Respect for Life) and Angela Marshall (Program Director) have done exceptional work over the years in their outreach to the disabled community. Others too have directed a great deal of energy seeking to provide support for disabled persons and their causes.In my new capacity as the bishops liaison to the disabled, our relationship with the Office for Respect for Life will continue, and I hope, will be strengthened. I also see part of my role as lifting some of the burdens from that office. You see, the matter of disability cannot be compartmentalized. The disabled community includes people from all walks of life with many different needs and as such we need to use all the resources of our diocese and, therefore of the Catholic Church (locally), for the benefit of those with special needs.
As such, part of my role is to help identify what and where a specific need exists and try to address it. In one circumstance we might be talking about a new building project in our diocese, which must always be mindful of including the needs of disabled persons before any construction takes place, while in other circumstances needs are best addressed by our diocesan Office for Worship, Faith Formation Office or Pastoral Life or Catholic Charities or our School department or even Human Services. Bishop Bootkoski is determined to have all the resources of our diocese at the disposal of the disabled community and not just a single diocesan department.
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We just completed a survey of our parishes which was very enlightening. The good news is that most of our Church buildings have barrier-free accessibility for wheelchairs. The greater challenges include listening devices for members of our community hard of hearing but do not know sign language. Then there are challenges for the blind that need addressing and other practical matters like proper "handicap parking" for wheelchair vans and bathrooms that are "handicap friendly."
We are also in process of forming a new diocesan commission for the disabled. This will include people from various backgrounds who have special needs themselves or are otherwise interested in helping in these important matters.The immediate goals are:-
- Seeking ways to ensure that church properties are all handicap accessible or barrier-free (which seems to be the preferred language).
- Continuing to ensure that all Catholic members of the disabled community have access to the sacraments. (This is a very personal one for me. In the past, I have been horrified by the fact that some teenagers and young adults were baptized but did not receive the Sacrament of Confirmation or First Holy Communion because parents or guardians did not know that the Church or diocese had special Formation programs for children with special needs. Some parishes also lack resources and have neglected to ask the diocese for assistance in these matters).
- To help ensure that members of the disabled community have full access to all Church resources and become themselves full participants in the life of the Church.
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I am an idealist. I would hope that a year down the road, all members of the disabled community within our diocese would know that the Church, like Christ, is here for them.
On a practical level, I would hope that all Pastoral teams in each parish identify and name a Parish Representative for the Disabled within a year who will coordinate appropriate outreach to those in the parish with special needs and serve as a spokesperson for the parish. This person would also represent the parish when contacting the diocese with special requests or concerns. The diocese would also direct any and all communication to this special representative for the disabled.
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- They may have never been invited. Most parishes have no form of disability ministry or outreach.
- People with disabilities may have no way to get to Mass, or to access the church building when they arrive.
- People with disabilities may not feel welcome and included.
- People with disabilities may have had a bad experience at church and stopped going.
- The attitude of parishioners towards them may be hurtful - misunderstanding, patronizing, pitying, or unwilling to understand.
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Contact the Office for Persons with Disabilities
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Reverend John G. Hillier, Ph.DDirector, Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, Director, Office of Persons with Disabilities
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24-Hour Prayer Line
Our Diocesan Office for Persons with Disabilities has a 24-hour prayer line for those who desire prayer for special needs. If you, a family member or a friend would like to be remembered in prayer for a temporary or permanent illness, please call us and leave a detailed message at 732-765-6431 or send an email to our office: catholicswithdisabilities@gmail.com
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