Catholic News Service
“I remember sitting in the hospital,” said Kay Hughes, “huddled in a little group of about six, when one of us received a visit from her pastor. The rest of us sat there and related things like, ‘My pastor never visits me, no one from the church visits me. I’ve never even received a card from my church, let alone visits or flowers.'”
This story, told by a woman who struggled with mental illness — and her church’s lack of awareness or action to address it — begins “Welcomed and Valued: Building Faith Communities of Support and Hope with People with Mental Illness and Their Families,” a 2009 publication of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability and its Council on Mental Illness.
The NCPD — a leader in actively addressing mental illness within the context of Catholic living — stresses that welcome and inclusion of such individuals is the only option for a Catholic community that promotes respect for life.
“People with mental illness have many gifts and talents that add to the life of a community of faith,” states “Welcomed and Valued.”
“Once we strip away the generalizations and distortions we are better able to see people for who they truly are, individuals created in the image of God, our brothers and sisters.”
Such awareness and action is essential, given that mental illness is experienced by one in five U.S. adults each year, according to the American Psychiatric Association Foundation and the Mental Health and Faith Community Partnership in “Mental Health: A Guide for Faith Leaders.”
But, the report adds, “Mental illness is treatable. The vast majority of individuals with mental illness continue to function in their daily lives.”
That message underscores the NCPD’s mission “to fully include people with mental illness and their families in the life of the church and to support them as they seek justice in our society.”
The distinction between mental illness and disabilities of a physical, developmental or emotional nature has not always been made by the Catholic Church in its outreach efforts and documents, although such efforts make clear that individuals seen as “different” because of their disabilities are no less deserving of love, acceptance and support than anyone else. Some examples:
— The U.S. bishops’ 1978 pastoral statement on persons with disabilities. “Scripture teaches us that … ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself,'” the bishops wrote. “We must love others from the inside out … accepting their difference from us in the same way that we accept our difference from them.”
— “Hearts Made Whole,” a 2011pastoral letter on behavioral health by Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia. “Our compassion,” the bishop said, “must be combined with a sense of justice forged in the crucible of our awareness of our interdependence, our respect for the human dignity of each person and our awareness that Jesus resides in each of us.”
— “Disabilities in Parishes Across the United States: How Parishes in the United States Accommodate and Serve People with Disabilities,” a 2016 report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. CARA noted that a majority of parishes have taken action to accommodate those with any sort of disability in parish life and activities.
And in June 2016, Pope Francis — celebrating a Mass for the Jubilee for the Sick and Disabled — stated, with characteristic bluntness, “The world does not become better because only apparently ‘perfect’ people live there … but when human solidarity, mutual acceptance and respect increase. … The way we experience illness and disability is an index of the love we are ready to offer.”
In the U.S., promoting a culture of welcome, acceptance and inclusion for those with mental illness has been led by the Archdiocese of Chicago. Two decades ago, led by Deacon Tom Lambert of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, the archdiocese established a Commission on Mental Illness, with a membership that includes persons with mental illness and mental health service providers.
The commission annually coordinates and presents workshops, liturgies and parish-based, semi-weekly “faith and fellowship” meetings for small groups of mentally ill people and parish volunteers.
Other dioceses, notably the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon and its Office for People with Disabilities, offer resources that address how to welcome and include those with mental illness in parish life.
Amy Simpson, the author of “Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission,” suggests that the first step for any parish or individual wanting to address the issue of mental illness to “talk about it,” noting that most who have mental illness do so “quietly and in shame.”
People who have mental illness, Simpson asserts, “need friends who will not abandon them when they’re symptomatic.”
And if a church can’t be a source of friendship and support, who can?
“How can it be,” Kay Hughes says in “Welcomed and Valued,” “that a church is not a safe place — a sanctuary for those who need respect, dignity, affirmation, prayer and hope for recovery”?
“We are not our diagnosis. We, too, have gifts and talents to be shared. You need to understand our serious needs.”
Catholic journalist Mike Nelson writes from Southern California.
