Bridging the gap between the Deaf and those who can hear

You’ve probably seen them before – animatedly gesticulating with their hands and mouthing words but emitting few sounds. Theirs is the silent world of deafness – a secret and mysterious world to most of us who can hear. They look and act like everybody else except when they don’t turn around when you call out their name. So, sometimes, deaf people are looked upon as being strange, different…not “normal.”

Nicole “I struggle with it … opportunity to pray some of the frustrations away.”

No, Nicole Clarke isn’t deaf – she can hear just like those of you who can listen to this program. She’s frustrated because she sees how the deaf, or people seen as being different are often treated – how they can be stigmatized, ostracized and sometimes ridiculed.

Nicole, the official sign translator for the Archdiocese of Sydney has dedicated her life to being a bridge between the deaf and those who can hear.

Nicole I think God gave me ability to hear because I'm not patient enough….arrogance is a challenge.”

Speaking of the difficulties Deaf people face, Pope Benedict says there is a lingering culture today of “real prejudice and discrimination” against them.

“These are deplorable and unjustifiable attitudes” he said,”because they are contrary to respect for the dignity of the non-hearing person and his or her full social integration.”

Pope Benedict invites us to embrace the deaf and hearing impaired as true members of the Church’s family – and challenges them to be active participants and real evanglizers in their communities.

The Pope described today’s society as suffering from a “deafness of the spirit” – which he says "raises ever higher barriers to the voices of God and of neighbor … especially the cry for help from the least ones and those who suffer – and which encloses man in a profound and corrosive egoism.”

Jesus wanted to give face to a new humanity. “a humanity of listening and of the word, of dialogue, of communication of communion with God” the Pope said. And this new humanity must be “without discriminations, without exlusions… so that the world will be truly for all a field of genuine fraternity.”
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