Integrate the handicapped into society, Pope urges

(March 8, 2006) Pope Benedict XVI urged efforts to integrate handicapped people into ordinary society, in a message to the Brazilian bishops. Each year the Brazilian bishops' conference promotes a "Fraternity Campaign" during the season of Lent, and this year's campaign is devoted to the needs of the handicapped. The Pope offered his support to that campaign in a letter to Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo of Sao Salvador da Bahia, the president of the Brazilian bishops' conference. In helping the handicapped, the Pope wrote, “the faithful should have not only an attitude of tenderness and consolation, but a commitment to bring them into full participation in society. Christians must protect the rights of handicapped people,” the Pope said, “because regardless of their intellectual or physical abilities they remain fully human, with the sacred and inalienable rights that belong to humans." Pope Benedict encouraged support for groups that work with the handicapped. All of the faithful, he said, should show their solidarity "not only for those who undergo such suffering, but also for those who help the most needy."