Pope Francis: Kissing the Disabled Isn't Enough

My latest for Crux is on a special mass that Pope Francis held on Sunday, focusing on disability issues. It sounds like a good event - much more active in participation than usual. Please read and share.

I was especially pleased to receive this quote from a former student:

I spoke to David Gayes, a former student with whom I frequently discuss disability and Catholicism, about his experiences with inclusion. He told me that “inclusion Sundays” are pretty common in the Chicagoland Catholic community, often organized by thePathways Foundation of Chicago.
He admitted, “I have mixed feelings about them, even when they are done ‘well.’ When the people with disabilities are passive, it’s horrible. [Even] when people with disabilities are given agency, it can still go wrong.”
“As we sometimes see with MLK day or Black History Month, some people think, ‘Well, we’ve included them. We’re done. Next year, we’ll include them again,'” Gayes said.
Awareness events may be a first step, but Gayes wants to see the Church strive for something more universal. “What we need is full belonging in all faith services and programs,” he said, “full integration that is based on a respect of the gifts, talents, and contributions of each member of the community.”

So, it's basically like all other things - full integration is the way.

Pope Francis and Disability as Spectacle

I've been writing about Pope Francis and Disability this week, and Lennard Davis reminded me of his useful essay from March of 2013, just when Francis was installed as pontiff.

On his way to the inauguration, Pope Francis blessed a baby and actually got out of his Popemobile to bless a disabled man. Pope Francis kissed the man, and then cradled the man’s head in his hands as he blessed him. Later in his inauguration speech, he spoke of the poor and the need for the church to deal with poverty. Babies, the poor, and the disabled — all traditional categories in need of papal beneficence...

...Is there something inherently special about being disabled that requires a blessing? Most people with disabilities do not expect to be blessed by a religious figure just because they are disabled. The charity model sees disability as some kind of lesser human status that needs alms and blessings. The medical model updates this vision seeing disabled people as in need of a cure. But what has been called “the social model” sees disability as something that society constructs for complex and varied reasons from the eugenic need to glorify normality to the requirement of having a category of the deserving poor (since most people with disabilities do indeed live below the poverty line). Disabilities are less in the person and more in the society.

Davis refers to this as Francis forging "his compassion-credentials," which I think is a great phrase, especially in the context of March before we knew him. I encounter compassionate people of faith regularly, but it's so easy to descend into the charity model.

I am routinely told that my son has a special relationship with God. I smile and respond, "I hope he has the same relationship with God as every other human."

There is something, though, in the way that religious figures deploy disability as a way to demonstrate their absolute committment to loving everybody, that disabled figures are brought forward to the Pope for special blessings, that media coverage around the pope and disability highlights spectacle and difference.

David Gayes, one of my favorite former students, wrote a gorgeous essay around this (with the first draft in my class), called, "No Beauty or Truth Excluded," around these issues. It;s behind the Taylor and Francis paywall, but here's the abstract:

I challenge the ableist and prejudicial assumptions that underlie common Scripture interpretations of people with disabilities. I assert that the lived experiences of this marginalized group, as well as the insights from the emerging field of disability studies, must be brought to the center in interpreting Scripture. The groundbreaking work of Nancy Eiesland, Donald Senior, and other theologians and disability thinkers offers valuable support to this contention.

You can read an early version of this (in which I participate as the abled, white, cis-male reader of Scripture) from David's presentation at our annual "Caritas et Veritas" symposium. Here's an excerpt [emphasis mine].

A third conventional interpretation of disability is that those with health conditions are here so that the able-bodied can “do” for them, and thus, feel good about themselves. We see this every time we see a poor crippled child walk across the stage to plead for money for the Jerry Lewis Telethon. We can donate our 10 bucks, and move on. 

On a recent trip that I took with a group, a deacon was relentlessly persistent in wanting to “experience” my “holiness” as a “crippled” person, by pushing my wheelchair without asking my permission or receiving any direction from me. He could only imagine himself in the role of the helper, and could not recognize our shared humanity.

One gets pretty weary of being other people’s service project.

This, at the core, is my critique of disability in the recent papal letter and so much well-intentioned but dehumanizing language and behavior around disability.

It's nicer than negative stigmas, but it's still stigma.

Pope Francis and Disability (in the context of love, marriage, family)

The pope (or rather the social media managers) tweeted a line from "Amoris Laetitia" - the papal exhortation on love, marriage, and family, this morning. I didn't like it. 

I hadn't, however, read the actual document, and wanted to correct that. Here's a collection of relevant excerpts from the English translation with some initial thoughts at the end.

47. The Fathers also called particular attention to “families of persons with special needs, where the unexpected challenge of dealing with a disability can upset a family’s equilibrium, desires and expectations… Families who lovingly accept the difficult trial of a child with special needs are greatly to be admired. They render the Church and society an invaluable witness of faithfulness to the gift of life. In these situations, the family can discover, together with the Christian community, new approaches, new ways of acting, a different way of understanding and identifying with others, by welcoming and caring for the mystery of the frailty of human life. People with disabilities are a gift for the family and an opportunity to grow in love, mutual aid and unity… If the family, in the light of the faith, accepts the presence of persons with special needs, they will be able to recognize and ensure the quality and value of every human life, with its proper needs, rights and opportunities. This approach will promote care and services on behalf of these disadvantaged persons and will encourage people to draw near to them and provide affection at every stage of their life”. Here I would stress that dedication and concern shown to migrants and to persons with special needs alike is a sign of the Spirit. Both situations are paradigmatic: they serve as a test of our commitment to show mercy in welcoming others and to help the vulnerable to be fully a part of our communities.

82. The Synod Fathers stated that “the growth of a mentality that would reduce the generation of human life to one variable of an individual’s or a couple’s plans is clearly evident”. The Church’s teaching is meant to “help couples to experience in a complete, harmonious and conscious way their communion as husband and wife, together with their responsibility for procreating life. We need to return to the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae of Blessed Pope Paul VI, which highlights the need to respect the dignity of the person in morally assessing methods of regulating birth… The choice of adoption or foster parenting can also express that fruitfulness which is a characteristic of married life”. With special gratitude the Church “supports families who accept, raise and surround with affection children with various disabilities”

195. Growing up with brothers and sisters makes for a beautiful experience of caring for and helping one another. For “fraternity in families is especially radiant when we see the care, the patience, the affection that surround the little brother or sister who is frail, sick or disabled”. It must be acknowledged that “having a brother or a sister who loves you is a profound, precious and unique experience”.  Children do need to be patiently taught to treat one another as brothers and sisters. This training, at times quite demanding, is a true school of socialization. In some countries, where it has become quite common to have only one child, the experience of being a brother or sister is less and less common. When it has been possible to have only one child, ways have to be found to ensure that he or she does not grow up alone or isolated. 

197. This larger family should provide love and support to teenage mothers, children without parents, single mothers left to raise children, persons with disabilities needing particular affection and closeness, young people struggling with addiction, the unmarried, separated or widowed who are alone, and the elderly and infirm who lack the support of their children. It should also embrace “even those who have made shipwreck of their lives”. This wider family can help make up for the shortcomings of parents, detect and report possible situations in which children suffer violence and even abuse, and provide wholesome love and family stability in cases when parents prove incapable of this. 

What's striking here is that in all of the cases the disabled person is the object. The family is inherently abled in this vision, being exhorted to provide care to the afflicted, and being blessed for providing care. Nowhere is the parent who is disabled, providing care for the abled child, for example. Nowhere is the disabled person's independence and decision-making affirmed. 

This is a kind, charitable, paternalistic vision in which the function of the disabled is to demonstrate the goodness of those who care for them. Such, anyway, is my first reading. 

 

The Pope Objectifies Disability

UPDATE: See this post for the full passages on disability from the recent papal document on marriage/family.

I made my leap into public writing when Pope Benedict stepped down and Pope Francis was elected. Both events had strong medieval tendrils and, for awhile, much of the rest of the press kept being confused what Francis was saying. As a medievalist, I seemed to have a head start.

It's not my natural beat, though. I'm not a Catholic and I'm not truly expert in the machinations of the 21st century church (unlike the 13th century church, where I either am expert or I know the right experts to ask). Eventually, the press caught up or hired experts (Candida Moss, Elizabeth Bruenig, etc), and I moved off into both higher ed and disability journalism.

This morning @Pontifex tweeted, in a string of tweets about the family (and in the broader context of papal pronouncements about family, about divorce, and other topics):

People with disabilities are a gift for the family and an opportunity to grow in love, mutual aid and unity.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) April 9, 2016

 Although the word "mutual" is intriguing, in general this point directly to the charity model of disability. Disabled people are here objectified as an object to demonstrate the virtue of the (presumed) abled family.

In other words, this isn't really helping.

Right now, in Illinois, a major Catholic charity is claiming that it deserves funding under the rubric "community," despite the fact that it's clearly an institutional setting. I'll write more about that, I hope, in the weeks and months to come.

Published work on the papacy:

• The canonizations of Popes John-Paul II and John XXIII (CNN.com, 7/5/2013)
• Pope Francis' Wager (Atlantic.com, 5/24/2013)
• The Cardinal and the Prime Minister (Atlantic.com, 5/17/2013)
• The Importance of Being Francis (Atlantic.com, 3/14/2013)
• History and the Papal Election: Thoughts for a Sede Vacante (Atlantic.com, 3/12/2013)
• Pope Benedict XVI and Pope St. Celestine V (CNN.com, 2/12/2013)