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Ministry To Deaf Catholics


DameAgnes

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Smart sisters who discuss their ministry to the Deaf, and what important needs still need to be addressed.

Almost seems like this could be its own charism for an order, doesn't it?


http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Deaf-to-Their-Cries-Lisa-Mladinich-02-09-2011.html
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Related-Unknown-Increasing-Vocabulary-for-Deaf-Children-Lisa-Mladinich-02-16-2011.html

Supposedly tomorrow will be a third piece, talking to a Dominican sister who has worked with the Deaf for decades and has developed a program.

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[quote name='DameAgnes' timestamp='1298396308' post='2214625']
Smart sisters who discuss their ministry to the Deaf, and what important needs still need to be addressed.

Almost seems like this could be its own charism for an order, doesn't it?


[url="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Deaf-to-Their-Cries-Lisa-Mladinich-02-09-2011.html"]http://www.patheos.c...02-09-2011.html[/url]
[url="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Related-Unknown-Increasing-Vocabulary-for-Deaf-Children-Lisa-Mladinich-02-16-2011.html"]http://www.patheos.c...02-16-2011.html[/url]

Supposedly tomorrow will be a third piece, talking to a Dominican sister who has worked with the Deaf for decades and has developed a program.
[/quote]

I think this is a great idea. maybe an existing teaching order can do something like this

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I have a class with a seminarian who is severely hearing impaired. He uses a digital hearing aid that has this receiver that he puts on the lecture to hear the professor, or in the middle of the table when we do group work. I have wondered if he is going to do a special ministry or regular parish work. I would think hearing confession would be hard for him.

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LaPetiteSoeur

At my grandmother's cathedral a priest will do mass in sign language sometimes. I've never been there then :cry2: , but my grandmother says it's beautiful. Also, I can't imagin NOT being able to hear/understand a Mass. Thankfully new programs are [i]slowly[/i] cropping up!

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I was just thinking about this recently. There are at least 3 people that I know who come to Spanish Mass at a parish who are deaf.

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I think this is a wonderful charism/apostolate :like: Ive had a couple of friends who are hard of hearing and I think they like me because I naturally talk loud.

edited to add
I used to attend Mass at a parish that offered a kind of headset to members of the congregation who were hard of hearing. One would go to the organist and pick it up before Mass and return it there after.

Edited by vee8
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Dame Agnes said: "...ministry to the Deaf, and what important needs still need to be addressed. Almost seems like this could be its own charism for an order, doesn't it?"
It is. The Domincan Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate are a newly formed order (of men only, at this point) - maybe 10 years old. They have eight or ten members, only the first few of whom are professed. They're currently headquartered in San Antonio. Because they follow the Dominican rule, it's possible that they could eventually have a female branch of the order as well. http://www.dominicanmissionaries.org/index.html

Staretz said: "maybe an existing teaching order can do something like this." Some orders have a history of Deaf education, and that has always included instruction in the faith. The Congregation of St. Joseph (Carondelet) started a school for the Deaf in 1825 or something, and it's still going. There are a number of others as well. These orders usually include Deaf education as [i]one[/i] of their ministries - I don't know of any that do Deaf education exclusively.

CatherineM said: "I have a class with a seminarian who is severely hearing impaired. He uses a digital hearing aid that has this receiver that he puts on the lecture to hear the professor, or in the middle of the table when we do group work. I have wondered if he is going to do a special ministry or regular parish work. I would think hearing confession would be hard for him." You might recommend the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate to him; the one caveat is that he has to be able to communicate in sign language - they take Deaf or non-Deaf, but they all sign.

La Petite Soeur said: "At my grandmother's cathedral a priest will do mass in sign language sometimes." A number of dioceses - particularly the larger ones, have an established Deaf ministry, often with a signing priest. Deaf parents and their non-Deaf children attend, as well as Deaf children and their non-Deaf parents. Unfortunately, when budgets must be cut, Deaf ministry (or other kinds of ministry to the disAbled) is often the first to go since they usually serve very few people. Also, in a large diocese, there will usually be only one location with a signed Mass, and many Deaf Catholics can't always get to that one location.

Deaf ministry can also include interpreted Masses. For these to be done correctly, the interpreter should be a professional, and professsionals expect to be paid. Therefore, only the more affluent parishes offer this service, and then only if there's a need. Some interpreters work on a voluntary basis and consider it part of their financial support for the parish (money not spent on an interpreter is money available to spend on other things, even if the interpreter isn't chucking cash into the collection basket).

While the Catholic Church has been involved in Deaf ministry for a long time (in the written record, dating back to the 1500s in Spain), it has seldom been [i]extensively[/i] involved, at least compared to certain other denominations.

Edited by Luigi
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[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1298421217' post='2214745']
You might recommend the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate to him; the one caveat is that he has to be able to communicate in sign language - they take Deaf or non-Deaf, but they all sign.

[/quote]
He is studying for the diocese of Saskatoon, if I remember correctly.

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