Pastoral sacramental care of handicapped persons in parishes

Abstract

Pastoral care of handicapped persons, which requires a special catechesis preparing for the reception of the sacraments, presents an enormous challenge in our times. The fruits of such educational action consist of hitherto undisclosed depths of knowledge and of new experience. The traditional apostolate of people touched by deformity and defects is effected in the form of permanent pre-sacramental formation, by an active participation in various parish groups, as well as during religious instruction in integrated or special schools. Pastoral sacramental care of the handicapped in a parish is therefore a subject of multiple aspects and one which is unusually complex. In taking up this subject matter, one should always concentrate on an individual approach to the handicapped person, as well as consider that person's situation in respect of the handicap, whether intellectual, physical or both.