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Deaf Catholic integration moves forward, ever so slowly

By 
  • November 27, 2009
{mosimage}TORONTO - Alvera Nyabasa grew up going to church in her native Zimbabwe, but she had little idea what was going on before she moved to Canada as an adult. Like 80 per cent of the world鱿鱼视频app 1.3 million deaf Catholics who live in developing countries, Nyabasa grew up in a church that simply didn鈥檛 know how to deal with her.

Today, attending Sunday Mass with the De Salles Chaplaincy to Toronto鱿鱼视频app deaf community is a happy occasion for Nyabasa and her two boys. There at St. Stephen鱿鱼视频app Chapel on Bay Street, Fr. Harry Stocks says Mass in American Sign Language, or, if another priest is covering the Mass, it is simultaneously translated.

鈥淚 learned what it means,鈥 explained a smiling Nyabasa after Mass.

Stocks was unable to say Mass in Toronto on the Feast of Christ the King because he was in Rome 鈥 one of 90 people invited by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry to a Nov. 19-21 conference titled 鈥淓phphata: The Deaf Person in the Life of the Church.鈥

While Toronto鱿鱼视频app deaf Catholics were universally pleased to know that the Vatican is addressing the problems deaf people face in being included in the life of the church, some were distressed that it was the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, not the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, hosting the conference.

鈥淒eaf culture and health care ministry should be separate, not together,鈥 Angelique Vitulli told The Catholic Register via a TTY telephone line. 鈥淚t鱿鱼视频app conflicting, both health care and deaf culture. Deaf culture has many traditions, abilities and many positives. Health care involves any problem.鈥

鈥淚鈥檓 a little shocked that this is the department that this topic is under. That shocks me,鈥 said Eileen Zahakos, a teacher at St. Raymond鱿鱼视频app Catholic School program for the deaf.

Zahakos and Vitulli work together at St. Raymond鱿鱼视频app. Vitulli is deaf and Zahakos hears.

While Toronto鱿鱼视频app deaf Catholics are lucky to have Stocks and a chaplaincy that respects and cherishes deaf culture, they don鈥檛 feel entirely integrated into the life of the church, said Hughie MacEachern.

For many in the De Salles Chaplaincy Sunday Mass in the St. Stephen鱿鱼视频app Chapel, a windowless converted office space hidden away on the second floor of an old office building, is far from convenient and just doesn鈥檛 feel like a real church, MacEachern said. Sunday Mass attendance has dwindled since the chaplaincy moved from Holy Name 鈥 an impressive turn-of-the-20th-century church on the Danforth.

鈥淲e need an actual church. We really want people to come.鈥

In his closing address to the conference in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI called prejudice and discrimination against the deaf 鈥渄eplorable and unjustifiable.鈥

鈥淚 appeal to political and civil authorities, as well as international bodies, to offer the necessary support to promote, even in these (developing) countries, the needed respect for the dignity and rights of non-hearing people, and to promote with adequate assistance their full integration into society,鈥 said the Pope.

The Rome-based Zenit news agency reports that Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi came away from the conference profoundly impressed with the depth of sign language as a medium to communicate the Gospel.

鈥淚t is a communication that comes from the depths and passes through an extraordinary commitment of love,鈥 Lombardi told Zenit.

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