Another motion advanced on the final day of the bishops’ spring gathering was their planned update to the bishops’ pastoral statement on persons with disabilities.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, chair of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, told those gathered that in the 45 years since the bishops first published their pastoral statement on persons with disabilities, its fruits have been evident with families seeing that “the Church cares for their loved ones with disabilities” and persons with disabilities being “inspired to seek out accommodations at their parishes.”
He said that while that statement remains “foundational, we do believe a new statement is needed to address disability concerns in the Church of the 21st century.”
Updates encouraged by Barron included an emphasis on the “vocations of persons with disabilities, spiritual themes of hope and joy versus brokenness and suffering to help remove stigmas,” and “current disability language instead of the use of dated and pejorative words.”
He added that the document could be updated with “a broader understanding of disability beyond physical and intellectual disabilities, inclusive of mental illness as well.”
Several bishops praised the body’s working alongside the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. Bishop John Folda of Fargo, North Dakota, noted the need to address the increasing and concerning prevalence of assisted suicide and euthanasia “playing to people with disabilities” with “more and more pressure for these practices.”
Concluding discussions and prayer
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said that alongside the community of those with disabilities it was “crucial to convince people in the secular culture of how evil” physician-assisted suicide is.
The bishops dealt with a variety of other business, including an update on planning for the upcoming World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in August.
The meeting concluded with the bishops joining together to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart, something the bishops have encouraged the faithful to pray on June 16, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the same day the Los Angeles Dodgers have chosen to honor the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” an anti-Catholic group that describes its members as “queer and trans nuns.”
Lauretta Brown is the National Catholic Register’s Washington-based staff writer.