Finding out directly how the Church community can do more to help people with disabilities and close the gap between action and words was the aim of a Listening Day in Adelaide hosted by the Disability Projects Office. Source: The Southern Cross.
In his 2025 book, Becoming a More Discerning Church Together: A New Guide to Better Understand Synodality, Trinidad and Tobago Archbishop Charles Jason Gordan reflected on the need to better include people with disabilities within the Church.
“We appreciate the contribution that comes from the immense wealth of humanity they bring with them,” Archbishop Gordon wrote.
“We acknowledge their experiences of suffering, marginalisation and discrimination, sometimes suffered even within the Christian community due to attempts at showing compassion that can be paternalistic.”
It was a theme discussed at length at an inaugural meeting last month, hosted by Sanjay Mohanarj on behalf of the Adelaide Archdiocese, which asked how people with disabilities can become more integrated in Church life and involved with the 2026 Diocesan Synod in Adelaide.
Run by Adam Hughes Henry, the Listening Day pilot scheme is an initiative of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’ s Disability Projects Office. The idea emerged from the Catholic Accessibility Forum, a new online forum seeking guidance from people with lived experiences.
It is a way of finding out directly how the Church community can do more to help people with disabilities and close the gap between action and words, Dr Henry said.
Next year’s Adelaide Synod is an opportunity to include people who do not necessarily sit safely within any one group of society, he said.
Listening Days have already been held in Brisbane and Sydney, with other capital cities and larger dioceses to follow.
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Listening to lived experience of people with disability (The Southern Cross)
