The subtle lure of "ableism"

The vote in favor of New York state's assisted suicide bill had me digging up a short talk I offered at an archdiocesan gathering of disability advocates here in New Orleans when I first arrived. With some modifications (owing to the format, not the content), I share it here with you:

I imagine that part of what you will be doing this morning is discerning helpful ways to use media in the service of faith and prayer. And some of you are able to do that because media technology are being used in a helpful way. My community, the Daughters of St. Paul, isn’t just about selling books as a way of supporting ourselves; we are committed to evangelizing with the media, and we have a publishing house, Pauline Books and Media. But there's more to it even than that:

 

As Daughters of St. Paul, part of our mission is to make reparation for media that take people away from God, that twist human activity, but also human minds and hearts, and harm individuals and society. 

We have our work cut out for us.

 

In the second Letter to the Corinthians we see how the people of Corinth scorned Paul. He just didn’t measure up to the people they admired: people of eloquence and athletic stamina. Today we have “Instagram perfection” in which any outward disfigurement becomes a disability. 

 

Facing life with a serious disability or at the side of a person with a disability (especially when that is profound) has become almost unthinkable for many people today in part because of how the media have conditioned us: not only our way of seeing people, but the way limitations are typically presented, dealt with, ignored, or abhorred in media. When people with disabilities are represented, they can often be caricatures. 

 

So this morning, I invite you to join me in a prayer of  reparation for media:

• Media that targets vulnerable persons or undermines their dignity in any way;
• Media portrayals that focus on the human person in isolation, the person who defines himself or herself without relationships of love, trust, acceptance, forgiveness;
• Media that promote false ideals of physical flawlessness with Instagram perfection and Photoshopped bodies;
• Media especially that creates addictive experiences for children and young people, some of whom hate their own beautiful, strong, healthy bodies because of what they have seen and perhaps done in imitation of media models.

And let’s pray in intercession for people, especially media influencers, who cannot recognize the dignity of persons with disabilities, and whose media creations spread that narrow vision of the human person like a contagion.

 

 

 

For further reflection:

 

"Really and radically every person must be understood as the event of a supernatural self-communication of God" (FCF 127; Karl Rahner).

  

“God is there in these moments and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him—really rest—and start the next day as a new life" (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross).

The French mystic Gabrielle Bossis, in prayer, understood Jesus telling her, “Give Me your suffering. No one can give it to Me in heaven. Give it to Me.”