From a recent Zenit news article, I learned something that I never knew before: “It is estimated that there are 1.3 million deaf Catholics,
and the Vatican is intent on ensuring that they can fully participate in the
Church.” Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski,
president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, gave this statistic at his department’s 24th international conference meeting this week in Rome. The conference’s theme is “Ephphata: the Deaf
Person in the Life of the Church.”
“The prelate,” according to Zenit said, “estimated that in developed countries, one child
out of 1,000 is deaf, but the problem is more serious in poor countries, where
80% of the world’s deaf live. In these cases, deafness is often the result of
insufficient medical care and lack of medication.” He indicated “the need to help people with
this impairment, precisely as ‘the world has begun to overcome the
prejudices and superstitions linked to physical disability.'”
A liturgical resource for helping the deaf is Joan Blake’s Signing the Scriptures:
Plus, there’s the DVD Tips and Techniques for Signing the Scriptures.