Problem with Isolating the Disabled

In the Now Here Web Site a reporter has published an interview with Fr. Noel Cheon (Patrick Noel O'Neil) a 90 year old Columban Foreign Missionary who was ordained in 1956 and came to Korea the following year. He worked as a parish priest for 24 years before he began working with the developmentally disabled for the last 40 years.

In 1978, a 19-year-old person with developmental disabilities living in a Rehabilitation Center died of pulmonary tuberculosis.  Fr. Noel was at that time volunteering once a week with parishioners at the Center. He got a call from a Rehabilitation worker that Maria Kim, a 19-year-old intellectually disabled patient was in critical condition from acute pneumonia. He visited Maria Kim at the hospital. She passed away after she took Fr. Noel's hand and said "thank you".

 

Together with the parishioners of the parish they buried Maria Kim in a Catholic cemetery and erected a tombstone with the words asking for forgiveness. They asked for the body of Marie for dissection but the priest refused. She was not respected for her 19 years of life and felt that would not be the proper end to her short life.

 

The  Rehabilitation Center  included  alcoholics, orphans, the  developmentally disabled, the elderly living alone, tuberculosis patients all living together. Father Noel witnessed this reality, persons living together without concern for their different disabilities and circumstances who found it difficult to say what they wanted. And thinking of the society that was indifferent to the tragic death of the young woman, he decided to respond to the silent cry of the disabled. Father Noel  started a group home for the first time in Korean society and has continued for 40 years.

 

He realized that he didn't know anything about work with the disable  and went  looking for opportunities to learn during a sabbatical year after 24 years in parish  pastoral work. He studied facilities in New Zealand, Germany, the US, Ireland, the UK, and Australia, and listened to many seminars on the subject. The year 1980 was designated as the "year of the disabled" by the United Nations. 

 

He visited the 'L'Arche Community', a self-reliance community for the disabled founded by Jean Vainer, and lived with them for a month. He visited a large facility in New Zealand where about 1,500 people lived and was told by the staff, don't do it like us.

 

He was  deeply influenced by Denmark and Germany's welfare ideology, the 'principle of normalization' (The disable need the same experience of growth and development as the non-disabled and freedom of choice that fits their life cycle). After the Holocaust in Germany during World War II, it was a period of guilt in Western society which he experience in his travels. "I didn’t know anything about the welfare of the disabled, and even when I came back with a 17th-century mindset, I was learning 21st-century concepts."

On his return he immediately started living in a two-story house with a friend and a volunteer from the rehabilitation center. For those who left the rehabilitation center, it was the first 'de-institutionalization', and for Father Noel, it was the first time doing pastoral care for the developmentally disabled. "At that time, everyone thought I was crazy."

"There was a common perception in the local community that de-institutionalization and independence of the disabled did not fit into Korean culture— it was impossible to live with non-disabled people in the local community. He believed that de- institutionalization and self-reliance were not for him  alone, but for the people of society to work together. But among those who criticized his choice during the day, came to him to ask if a member of their family with a developmental disability could come and live with him.

 

After the interview, he visited the group homes  together.with the reporter. There are currently 14 group homes in Emmaus. "Cardinal Kim said that society is changing the church rather than the church changing society. That's the problem", he said. He also spoke about the pastoral care of the disabled in the current church.

 

Father Noel  said he understands the position of parents and families with developmental disabilities who are concerned about de-institutionalization. However, when other countries first pushed for de-institutionalization, he explained that the approval rate was about 17 percent at first, but 76 percent supported it 10 years later. 

 

He continued: "The biggest problem with the church is indifference. If the church itself is to be renewed, it must stand on the side of the marginalized."