The Carmelite parish of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in Cresskill, New Jersey, was featured in an article in America Magazine on the Catholic Church’s disability ministry in the United States. St. Thérèse parish is a leader in this ministry.
The author of the article visited the parish and noted “people arrive early and families talk to each other.” She is noticed because she is new and they ask her name— a new experience for her even after having attended many different churches. The sanctuary “screams of the 1970s” but “the parish feels fully alive.” About 15-20 families regularly attend the monthy Sunday mass.
People with disabilities provide service as lectors and altar servers. Following the Mass the people gather in another building with much of the food and drink provided by the special needs Mass’s “hospitality committee which is staffed by many parishioners who have no connection to the disability community except for their desire to support it.”
The Mass was started by Carmelite Samuel Citero, the current pastor at St. Thérèse. His inspiration came from a pilgrimage he made to Lourdes in 2015. “It didn’t take a lot to convince our parish,” he said, thanks to its longstanding commitment to social concerns.
Unlike many U.S. parishes, St. Thérèse parish in a suburb of New York City has seen growth in recent years, including a handful who joined St. Thérèse because of their welcoming stance toward people with disabilities. “We’re not trying to steal people’s parishioners, but we do what we do,” he says.
The problem has been the welcome some of these families received in their own parish. “Some of them are refused sacraments, so we take on that responsibility,” Father Citero explains. Some people with disabilities are denied the Eucharist if the pastor believes they cannot “distinguish the body of Christ from ordinary food,” as instructed by the Pastoral Statement of the U.S. Bishops on Persons with Disabilities which was published in 1978. But many parishes lack catechesis for people with disabilities to begin to grasp the mystery of the Eucharist. (And few neurotypical adults face similar scrutiny about their understanding of transubstantiation.)
According to the article, “Masses like the one at St. Thérèse offer safe spaces for people with disabilities to worship, where no one blinks an eye if they have an outburst or need to step out for a moment. They might also offer sensory adaptations. The Masses include people with disabilities among the liturgical ministers, which reminds the rest of the congregation that people with disabilities have abundant gifts to share with the church.”
The parish can also be a place where people with disabilities who struggle to make friends as adults can find a community that welcomes them, affirms their dignity, and provides a space for them to offer their gifts and talents.
