“Why did you stick with your faith after the discrimination?” Deacon Tim Bolton asked me. I had enrolled in Fairfield University’s spiritual direction program during college to deepen my lifelong Catholic faith. We had only recently met, and I was his first directee.
I sat in my motorized wheelchair and spoke my reply through the communication device that my disability, cerebral palsy, requires me to use: “I couldn’t imagine why God wouldn’t want me to be confirmed.”
I was born in 1997 at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Conn., and a prolapsed umbilical cord deprived me of oxygen for five minutes; I required assistance to breathe. I was baptized and anointed before being transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital per staff recommendations. Not predicted to survive overnight, I left my family and doctors astounded the next day by breathing unaided. Having no explanation, medical personnel labeled it a miraculous recovery. Clergy and relatives had put me on prayer lines, and we attribute my recovery to the power of prayer.
We believe I survived for a reason. Consequently, I try to live according to God’s will.
But it is not always easy, and I have faced discrimination in my faith journey. In particular, I met many challenges in the process of preparing for confirmation when I was 15. Parishes were not prepared to accommodate my needs nor were they always willing to recognize my abilities. I want to share here some advice, so that more people with disabilities will be met with welcome when they seek the sacraments.
Parishes should offer classes in accessible spaces. Although my family loved our parish, the basement where its confirmation classes meet is not wheelchair accessible. I made my first holy Communion on time only because my family was able to carry me and my wheelchair downstairs to religious education class. My growth spurts and my 400-pound wheelchair eliminated this option for confirmation. While the parish offered an at-home program (this was pre-pandemic), my mother and I agreed classes with others would enrich my experience and we decided to look into the program at another local church. Parishes that hope to welcome students of various abilities might consider meeting in more accessible settings and, wherever possible, updating their structures to accommodate people with different mobility needs.
Parishes should be flexible. Despite my physical limitations, I do not have cognitive impairments. I was an honors student in high school and attended religious education at my parish, so as a high school sophomore I was fully prepared to begin my confirmation classes. Although the coordinator at the new parish had been apprised of this, she put me in a class with seventh graders. She insisted that the sophomore classroom was inaccessible and that she would rearrange room assignments for next time. Had the groups simply swapped rooms, I would not have missed out.
Religious educators should never underestimate a person’s abilities. Unfortunately, part of the reason the coordinator refused to change classrooms likely was rooted in her false assumptions about my abilities based on my wheelchair and my need to speak through a communication device. She kept insisting that the “simpler” materials in the seventh grade class might be “more beneficial” to me.
I’d received similar treatment throughout life. My mother taught me to demonstrate my intelligence and need for equal respect through my language and achievements. The seventh grade class I was placed in was not intellectually stimulating for me.
The difference between my friends’ sophomore-level class and mine was conspicuous. My friends had suitably challenging discussions. My class decorated coloring pages depicting scriptural scenes without discussing their biblical significance. I felt I had backtracked.
Religious educators must maintain clear communication with families. The coordinator agreed to allow my participation in the upcoming confirmation activities but failed to attend properly to the practical details. By reading the church bulletin, my mother stayed apprised of the date of the events for sophomores. We attended the Mass where we were to be called by name to be blessed as candidates for confirmation as the preparation program officially began. My name was never called.
I remained optimistic that it was a mistake I could correct by catching the coordinator’s eye. The coordinator paused, making eye contact, then she ended the ceremony.
Those moments always wounded me. Whenever I was ostracized, I liked to give people the benefit of the doubt and first assumed it wasn’t purposeful. When their eyes met mine as exclusion continued, it felt like a boulder dropping onto my chest, making breathing difficult as I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
Pushing the joystick of my wheelchair, I rushed out of Mass in tears.
Sacraments should center around faith and grace, not a perpetual struggle for equity. My family promised to persist until we found a welcoming parish—a pledge I knew they would keep. Months became years, and accessibility issues remained. The answer materialized at a spring Mass during Accepted Students Day at Fairfield University, the school I had committed to. My mother and I grinned as the lector announced it as a confirmation Mass.
I asked Father Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., Fairfield’s then-president, if I could make my confirmation at Fairfield. When he said yes, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Fall brought weekly stimulating discussions, introducing concepts that marinated in my mind for days. I arrived at my confirmation classes overflowing with comments and questions. Deacon Tom Curran, Fairfield’s confirmation class teacher, embodied inclusion, providing discussion prompts beforehand to give me ample time to program my communication device with thoughts to share and regularly checking in on my satisfaction with accommodations.
God wants all of us to receive the graces of the sacraments. It’s a concept my spiritual director Deacon Tim and I still discuss. Paul tells the Galatians of God’s unconditional desire for deep relationships with everybody, no matter who they are (Gal 3:28). Luke chronicles Christ’s insistence on inclusion and compassion toward disabled people: “Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed” (Lk 14:13-14). The barriers I faced opposed God’s loving nature, so I knew this was not God’s plan and trusted a path to confirmation would emerge.
I still remember the brilliance of the candles at my confirmation Mass in May 2016. I beamed at loved ones as my sponsor placed his hand on my shoulder while I was anointed with the chrism oil. Inspired by the Blessed Virgin’s dauntless acceptance of God’s will, I took the name Mary. Immense positive energy ignited within me. Nothing could bar my way or extinguish my delight.
