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Available Now: Revision of the Guidelines

Revision of Guidelines for the Celebration of Sacraments with Persons with Disabilities online at the USCCB

The Guidelines have been published at the USCCB site found below. The Guidelines are the culmination of years of work and were approved by the Bishops last month at their annual meeting in June 2017.

A text of the Guidelines as well as a pdf version can be found in the Policies section of Divine Worship at the USCCB, (click here).

NCPD wishes to express gratitude to the USCCB committees which produced the revision, especially Daniel Cardinal DiNardo and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz for their efforts, as well as NCPD staff, Board and Council members.

It is the earnest hope of NCPD that they will be of benefit to Catholics with disabilities for years to come.

Catechesis and Persons with Disability:

A Necessary Engagement in the Daily Pastoral Life of the Church

This October 20-22 the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization (Council) will host an international conference to mark the 25^th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. NCPD has been asked to serve as a collaborator with the Council, the bishops’ conference of Italy, and the Kairos Forum in England to help plan, promote, and carry out the conference.
The schedule, includes presentations by bishops and catechetical and pastoral leaders from throughout the world. All are encouraged to attend.

Click here for Vatican page about the conference.

Click here for program.

Registration Form

Registration Process:
Please register by using the attached form at the "Register" button, which, upon completion, is to be emailed to convention2017@pcpne.va
All registrations must be received by September 15, 2017 (due to the capacity of the venue, numbers will be limited and registration will be closed when that capacity has been reached).
Each participant is responsible for his/her travel and stay in Rome. There is a €30/$30 contribution to be paid by each participant upon arrival at the Conference.

The Charlie Gard Case: Who Decides “Quality of Life”

The tragic case of Charlie Gard and his parents’ fight for their rights as decision makers have given us all pause concerning the role of not only government, but also physicians in determining the quality of life of persons with disabilities. Little Charlie is an 11-month old infant who suffers from a very rare genetic disease known as mitochondrial depletion syndrome. Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Charlie is a patient, wish to withdraw Charlie’s life support and to allow him to die. Charlie’s parents have been denied, with the support of successive courts, the ability to take Charlie home or to bring him to the United States for treatment, indicating that Charlie be allowed to “die with dignity.”

Added to the controversy is the fact that the barrister representing the court-appointed advocate for Charlie is a barrister who has advocated for a patient’s right to death with dignity. She once represented the wife of an incompetent patient in Great Britain’s High Court, who argued that her husband, who was clinically stable and had not written an advanced directive, would want to have life sustaining treatments withdrawn. The court ruled that the husband’s assisted nutrition and hydration could be withdrawn, and he died. The interesting fact is that in that case the will of the patient’s surrogate decision-maker was honored. In the case of little Charlie, the parents, who are supposed to be the advocates for their child, wish to provide their son a chance for potentially helpful treatment. Their wishes have been obstructed, not only by the hospital and the court, but also by Charlie’s court-appointed advocate and the barrister who represents the advocate. Read more