Barbara Harris’ call in The Record recently for a Church agency to help relieve parents of the stressful financial burden when enrolling their children with disabilities in Catholic schools is a cause for reflection …
I give my sincere thanks to the many people who emailed me, texted me, wrote me letters, phoned me up or met me in the shopping centre and told me how much they appreciated what I had written about the experience of so many parents of children with special needs seeking acceptance and access to services in the Church.
I also want to thank those who told me that their experience was different. It gives me hope.
One of the words that we hear regularly in our conversations and see in media reports is the word “inclusion”. Constantly, decision-making authorities are reminded to be “inclusive”.
We say that social justice demands inclusion and we are encouraged to use inclusive language.
To counter criticism, we quote statistical numbers in our defence to demonstrate just how inclusive we are. Statistical inclusion does not prove practical inclusion.
Using inclusive language, for instance, does not make a programme inclusive.
While some people are being welcomed and included and others are not, we cannot be said to be inclusive.
Social justice requires that we meet the needs of all. No one should be excluded in our Church because they learn differently, their needs are different, or because they make us feel uncomfortable.
No one in our Church should be ignored or “put on hold” because they are different or challenge us to be creative. What happens to people who are missing out while we wait for funding? It is right and proper to seek funding from governments, local, State or Commonwealth. It is not right, however, that we make some members of the Body of Christ wait or miss out on access to Church while we sort out funding issues.
This is why funding and supporting children with special needs and their families is a whole of Church issue.
Funds must be found by us as Church, and pressure and stress must be taken off parents and local school communities so all can be included.
It is a whole of Church responsibility – a responsibility to be shared – not relegated to the family and the local school. Inclusion is a product of faith, not funds.
There was one leader who welcomed the marginalised, accepted the outcast, and was particularly fond of all those whom His society shunned. His name was Jesus and He practised inclusion.
Jesus embraced people who were marginalised to help Him build the faith community around forgiveness and love.
Unfortunately, the world focuses on outcomes and criteria of fitness that preclude participation for some.
Being different too often means being looked at as a distraction, being seen as a burden, coming at a ‘cost’ in terms of time, energy and resources. It is easy to pay ‘lip service’ to the Gospel values.
A deeper understanding of Gospel values requires focus and commitment.
Inclusion is not a matter of charity or a caring behaviour that we practise and encourage because we are “nice” people.
Inclusion is a moral and ethical responsibility for all the members of our Church.
Inclusion provides benefits for all. Inclusion means that the best talents come forth. It means the practical extension of showing goodness to one another. Inclusion is a response to the call of Christ.
Inclusion is not about helping special needs people; it is about enabling and empowering all of us. It is about learning from each other and sharing the journey.
Inclusion works. When Emmanuel Centre started in 1981, it was set up to walk with people across the whole spectrum of disability.
Of course, some people said it would not work; that people with disabilities like to stick with “their own kind” and such a venture would be a breeding ground for bitterness, marginalisation and antagonism.
Those myths were and are being exploded many times over. Emmanuel Centre works because it always seeks to include. Yes, sometimes we don’t quite get it right. But a willingness to learn how to do something overrides the first impulse to say, “We can’t”.
We have found that inclusion builds community and helps us to achieve what Christ came to teach. Inclusion is what we as Church can be about at every level because that is what Jesus was all about. Jesus’ “Love one another as I have loved you” gives us both the goal and the means to achieve it.
To do other than include all of God’s children is an incomplete effort; a departure from the example and command of Jesus, and makes a sham of our sometimes daily Eucharist because we outcast the very members of the Body of Christ whom we supposedly are honouring.
We are all connected, related and belong to each other. Jesus said, “I am the Vine and you are branches” (John 15:5). There is no one, no place, no thing that is not related to Christ and through Christ.
If Jesus tells us that we all belong, then we do, regardless. To maintain that some people, some things or some places, are not part of the Divine Plan is not being in touch with reality.
We read in the Book of Genesis of God’s great act of inclusion. God wanted all of us to be with Him.
God looked on all that He had made and indeed it was very good. When we insist that all the resources of the Church be available to all God’s people, we join God in creating another Garden of Life.
Barbara Harris is coordinator of the Emmanuel Centre, a self-help centre run for and by people with disabilities, their families and those who work with people with disabilities. Contact EmmanuelCentre@westnet.com.au.