WALKING WITH THE EXCLUDED
By Fr Justin Glyn, General Counsel of the Australian Province, Fellow of The Loyola Institute; Honorary fellow of Australian Catholic University; Consultor: Dicastery of Laity, Family and Life.
Aside from the physical doors opened in the two jubilee years he declared, Pope Francis opened a number of doors in the Church’s perception of itself and its members. One of the most overlooked of these is the door to our self-understanding as limited human beings made in God’s image. In his 2020 encyclical, Fratelli tutti, he had described those of us with disabilities as often being “internal exiles” in the Church. In his audience on 1 June 2022, he spoke about a “magisterium of frailty”:
Do not hide frailties, no. It is true, they are real and there is a magisterium of frailty, which old age is able to remind us of in a credible way for the whole span of human life. Do not hide old age, do not hide the frailty of old age.
This marked the culmination of a real change in church theology which, before Francis, had fluctuated wildly between seeing our disabilities as either preternatural curse (a residue of original sin) or blessing (a privilege to suffer with Jesus).
The recent Synod called for an Observatory (a research centre) to be established to look at the role and ministry of disabled people in the Church, noting that all of us – those who see themselves as disabled or not – are called to build the Kingdom together.
This call to action continues beyond the earthly ministry of Pope Francis and seeks to further his vision of a Church in which all are indeed brothers and sisters working to build the Kingdom of God, regardless of physical or intellectual capacity.
Even here, far from St Peter’s or those who will soon be thronged to gaze intently at the roof of the Sistine Chapel, the theological exploration of the magisterium of frailty continues. In a collaboration between The Loyola Institute (a research institute of the Society of Jesus in Australia Ltd, associated with ACU) and the ACU’s Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, the Melbourne campus of ACU will soon host its first exploration of the implications of disability for Catholic theology and praxis. Idol Talk?: In the Image of the Disabled God, to be hosted online and in person will take up these questions.
The speakers will include people addressing a range of issues from the theological to the practical. Keynote addresses will be given by:
- Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli, opening the conference with an address entitled, “Human Life: Created not Made”;
- Fr Justin Glyn SJ, giving the title address, which will look at how to avoid tokenistic concepts like “inclusion” replacing the hard responsibility on all the people of God to ensure that all are equal collaborators in the Lord’s vineyard;
- Eminent US theologian Daniel Horan, who will look at Duns Scotus’ idea of “thisness” and its relevance to the anthropology of disability in an address entitled, “The Dignity of the Particular: Haecceitas, Disability and the Renewal of Theological Anthropology”; and
- Vittorio Scelzo, of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, who was instrumental in coordinating the submissions of disabled people to the recent Synod on Synodality.
Other speakers will include disability advocate Sam O’Connor AM, speakers from the John Pierce Centre (who will also be providing Auslan translation) and L’Arche, as well as contributions in the field of education, social services, ageing and dementia and the NDIS.
Sandie Cornish (theologian and chair of Study Group 2, established by the Synod to examine the Church’s “Listening to the Cry of the Poor”) and Louise Gosbell (Scripture scholar and Research Manager of the Australian University of Theology) will be involved as part of a panel of listeners to hear and discuss what emerges from the various presentations.
Banner image by Eren Li, Pexels.
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