Access to Consecrated Life for People With Disabilities

Among different possible ways of sanctification, the Roman Catholic Church proposes consecrated life to the faithful: devoting life to God, committing oneself to follow Christ with Holy Spirit's help. Can a Catholic person with disabilities be accepted into an institute of consecrated life? The present code of Canon Law requires sufficient healthy and mature candidates. As every institute has its own rules, these requirements may be more or less strict. Finally, every disability is different and entails specific constraints for these persons and their entourage. Some faithful persons with disabilities never find a religious institute, whereas others are welcomed with their disability. At these welcoming institutes, the disability is not taken as a problem to solve, but instead as a community project. It is possible for people with disabilities in standard institutes and also in places especially founded to allow people with disabilities—mental included—to devote their life to the Lord. They can live in community with able-bodied people. KEYWORDS: canon lawconsecrated lifeproject Notes 1. Expert opinion is only required in particularly difficult cases and with the free consent of the interested party (Instruction Renovationis causam 11, III, 06/01/1969). See also the commentary of Canon 642 (Caparros, Thériault, & Thorn, 1999). 2. As noted in Canon 220, "No one is permitted to harm illegitimately the good reputation which a person possesses nor to injure the right of any person to protect his or her own privacy." 3. The term experts here refers to medical experts, while respecting confidentiality and private life, according to Canon 220. 4. Thus, an institute is handicapped if the average age of its members is too high, and if it chooses not to welcome young members, valid because of the too-important difference in age such that these members could not spread completely in their vocation. Thus the institute chooses to die. 5. Not accepts, however, since the disability always remains unacceptable. 6. Agreeing on the handicap does not mean accepting it—it is always unacceptable. Agree means moving with the handicap, subscribing to the project that God has for the person and that passes by the disability. 7. Also, to detect, for example, a problem that is not perceived any more in the community, due to the lack of distance

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