TO INTEGRATE THE DISABLED: LOVE, SOLIDARITY, HUMAN RIGHTS

VATICAN CITY, DEC 4, 1999 (VIS) - The Holy Father this morning addressed the participants in a congress on "The Family and the Integration of the Disabled in Childhood and Adolescence." He focussed on the need for families and society to show love and solidarity towards the disabled and to not deprive them of their "inalienable, inviolable human rights."

"When difficulties, problems or illness strike in childhood," stated the Pope, "it is then that the values of faith can come to the aid of human values, so that primary human dignity, even of the disabled, is recognized and respected. ... The arrival of a suffering child is without doubt a distressing event for the family, which is intimately shaken by it." Parents must give this child special care and express "deep esteem for his human dignity. ... While this is true for every child, it takes on a singular urgency when the child is little and needs everything, is ill, suffering or handicapped."

The Holy Father underlined that "the family is the place par excellence where the gift of life is received as such, and the child's dignity is recognized with expressions of special care and tenderness. Above all when the children are the most needy and exposed to the risk of being rejected by others, it is the family who can, with greater efficacy, ensure their equal dignity with respect to healthy children."

John Paul II expressed "the Church's gratitude" for all who care for, love and support disabled children and adolescents. He also pointed to "the examples of extraordinary dedication on the part of countless parents towards their children" and "the multiple initiatives of families ready to accept with generous zeal disabled children as foster or adoptive parents."

Then, the Pope forcefully stated that "every person is the subject of basic rights which are inalienable, inviolable and indivisible. Every person: Therefore, even the disabled who, precisely because of their handicap, might meet greater difficulties in concretely exercising such rights."

He also emphasized that, while the Church and society have "specific roles" in developing solidarity for the disabled, "it is up to the family above all ... to understand that the value of existence transcends that of efficiency."

This three-day meeting, which ended today, was organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family and its president, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, together with the Special Family Education Center (CEFAES) of Madrid and the Leopoldo Program of Venezuela.

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