Can We Make the Churches Accessible
for the deaf and Hard of Hearing?
for the deaf and Hard of Hearing?
“Yet most parishes will make only minimal efforts to deliver the word to hearing handicapped. Am I to
conclude either that 1) the parishes do not really believe that God is present
in the word or 2) they don't care whether the words of the mass are heard and
understood. In either case my spiritual task is to avoid yielding to resentment. As
my resentment
takes over, I can't help observing that television
supplies closed captions. Does this
mean that TV stations care
more about being understood than does the church? " (Source:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/catholic-churches-and-the-hard-of-hearing)
"(Catholics) who want to attend mass and be a
part of ministries but do not find a willingness or desire for their inclusion.
Often times this is do to ignorance and a lack of awareness." (Source:
http://www.disabilityawarenesstraining.com/component/content/article/3/40)
US Bishop Pastoral statement: "Parish
liturgical celebrations and catechetical programs should be accessible to persons with disabilities and open to
their full, active and conscious participation, according to their capacity.”
"There are people — right now — in your churches (no
exceptions!) who are excluded by their hearing loss. They may not tell you. They may
even minimize or deny the extent and impact of their hearing loss. Yet they are out there,
every Sunday, until it gets so difficult they just leave. ” (Source: http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/11/26/please-hear-those-us-who-cant -by Mary Dyer)
" Many church members do not talk about their hearing
difficulty, and some end up leaving because they can no longer fully
participate in the worship.” (Source: http://www.livingchurch.org/back-loop -By
Lauren Anderson)
"People with disabilities are much less likely to attend
religious services than people without disabilities. This is largely due to barriers such as a lack
of architectural, communication, or attitudinal accessibility to churches and other places
of worship. ”(Source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15575330.2006.10383111#.Vc6gZkuezRo)
“Just as with wheelchair access issues, advocacy is paramount,” Kasper wrote. “Staying at home to avoid problems or pretending to understand when we don’t will not help us or future generations, and joining with others in a cause can be rewarding in itself.”
(Source: http://www.northjersey.com/news/hackensack-church-offers-captioning-for-hearing-impaired-1.1172320)
"Statistics tell us that 98% of people with hearing loss
do not have a church home, and the deaf and hard of hearing are the fourth
largest unreached people group in the world." (Source: http://captioningtheword.com/information.html)
Another set of statistics, however, shows that a full 98
percent of those who
are deaf or hearing impaired rarely or never attend church. - See more at:
http://www.stenotype.edu/news/stenographer-goes-church/#sthash.5tWSYgfx.qgQ6XleK.dpuf
"We depend on captions for television, movies,
relay phone calls, live theater and meetings, etc. However, captions are
lacking at churches and synagogues. As
a result we no longer attend. We feel excluded from the spiritual
communities." (Source:
http://xpressivehandz.blogspot.com/2014/07/why-churches-and-synagogues-need-to.html)
“If they can’t hear where it matters most,
they go home,” Diephouse said.”
(Source: http://www.mlive.com/living/grandrapids/index.ssf/2010/02/area_churches_other_facilities.html)
“According to N.O.D./Harris 2000 Survey of Americans with
Disabilities, people with disabilities are much
less likely to attend religious services at least once per month when compared
to people without disabilities (47% versus 65% respectively). Interestingly, this is
in no way an indication of religious faith. More than 8 out of 10 people with
and without disabilities consider their faith to be important to them, with
approximately 65% saying their religious faith is very important. Therefore,
something else – likely a barrier of architecture or attitude – is holding
people with disabilities back from attending services at a church/parish,
synagogue/temple or another place of worship.” Read the full report titled “Access to Religious
Services”, July 24, 2001 at: www.nod.org. (Source: http://www.uscj.org/JewishLivingandLearning/SocialAction/Accessibility/TheAmericanswithDisabilitiesAct_ADA_andReligion.aspx)
"About 90 percent of church members and constituents living with any of these forms of hearing loss become church dropouts. The culprit is the not uncommon failure of churches to be "hearing-accessible. ” Source: ( http://gbgm-umc.org/disc/sosbook.stm)
This is an
interesting article how churches could provide better access
for the deaf and hard of hearing:
Losing My
Religion? : http://origin.misc.pagesuite.com/pdfdownload/7c11713b-7af4-45b3-86b6-2026d9ce54e4.pdf
”If we find that diversity, then we are going to put in
the ramp. And we'll put in the elevator and we'll add real-time captioning [for
the deaf]."
(Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-10-19/news/0110190023_1_disabilities-accessible-open-hearts)
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