Pope Stops, Turns Around to Kiss Disabled Boy

[c.d.]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pope-stops-turns-around-to-kiss-disabled-boy/ar-AAePHvG?li=AAa0dzB

c.d.

[RivkahChaya]

The ring boy at my wedding had CP and was in a wheelchair. How many Pope points do I get?

Seriously, CP is more common than you'd think, unless you work with the disabled population. Is this pandering, or standard Pope duty? Cripes. A headline that boils down to "Pope does nice thing"? I hope to shout.

[Archaic]

Thanks for posting that C.D. I think it's beautiful.

A hug and a kiss is a simple human act, but the young man's family will draw great comfort from Francis's compassion for their severely disabled child.

Rivkah, you're entitled to your opinion, and to your own spiritual or non-spiritual beliefs as you choose, but to be honest I find it very rude of you to mock the spiritual traditions of others.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Harry D]

I don't think we should be encouraging clergymen to kiss young boys.

[Pcdunn]

The ring boy at my wedding had CP and was in a wheelchair. How many Pope points do I get?

Seriously, CP is more common than you'd think, unless you work with the disabled population. Is this pandering, or standard Pope duty? Cripes. A headline that boils down to "Pope does nice thing"? I hope to shout.

As a Roman Catholic, I can assure you that "pandering" (to the press, I suppose you mean) is NOT a standard Pope duty. Blessing children, especially those visibly handicapped, iIS indeed expected and often offered by the Pope-- as well as by Catholic clergy of all ranks. They are, after all, representing Christ on the earth.

[GUT]

I don't get why it's supposed to be a big deal.

I had a great aunt who had CP.

Couldn't walk, most people couldn't understand her when she spoke.

She loved a joke, the raunchier the better and loved a beer (or 6).

Best thing that ever happened to us kids, to us it was normal.

[RivkahChaya]

Thanks for posting that C.D. I think it's beautiful.

A hug and a kiss is a simple human act, but the young man's family will draw great comfort from Francis's compassion for their severely disabled child.

Rivkah, you're entitled to your opinion, and to your own spiritual or non-spiritual beliefs as you choose, but to be honest I find it very rude of you to mock the spiritual traditions of others.

Best regards,
Archaic

I find it rude that someone's "spiritual tradition" is to use disabled children for photo ops. I have several friends with CP (including my ring boy, who is now in college), and they would find an incident like the one in the OP cringe-worthy. To be fair, none of them has commented specifically on this incident, but they've commented on similar things, so I think I can guess what they'd say.

[GUT]

I find it rude that someone's "spiritual tradition" is to use disabled children for photo ops. I have several friends with CP (including my ring boy, who is now in college), and they would find an incident like the one in the OP cringe-worthy. To be fair, none of them has commented specifically on this incident, but they've commented on similar things, so I think I can guess what they'd say.

Your young friend is so lucky to have been born in a day and country where education was open to him.

I often wonder what my Aunty would have achieved if she had education open to her. She was far from stupid but just wasn't given the opportunities she was born in the 20s.


When she was little she and her mum (my Gran, Great Grandmother) were down the street and some old hag said to the mum "If I had one like that I'd lock it up and never let anyone see it, it should be in a hospital" I was told that is was said old hag was in hospital after Gran got through with her.

[RivkahChaya]

Actually, until Public Law 94-142 was passed in 1973 in the US (the Education of All Handicapped Children), public schools didn't have to take kids with CP, and there were very few schools for kids with physical disabilities. Kids with mild CP often ended up in residential schools for the mentally retarded, even though everyone who worked with them knew they had normal intelligence, but there was no other place for them. Some of them had hearing impairments, and if their CP was very mild, they might get into the Deaf school, but the Deaf school had the right to refuse them, and often did. A lot of times it depended on luck. If enrollment was low their year, they got in.

My friend is in a wheelchair, but he's very bright, and has pretty good upper body control. He never would have gotten into public school before 1974, though, because 94-142 forced the buildings to be accessible. Before that, no wheelchairs.

There was a kid with moderate CP in my class, who started in the 4th grade (1975). I don't know where he was before. He could walk, but he was obviously "CP." He staggered. He was a nice guy, though, and by the end of the year, very popular.

CP is on the rise, because it's very common in premature babies who survive, and the earlier they are born, the more likely they are to have CP.

[Ginger]

Given that the boy and (I presume) his family had turned out to see the Pope drive past, I'd have to think that having him stop and interact personally with the boy was probably one of the high points of his young life.

When I was seven years old, in April of 1968, my hero Robert Kennedy came to my small town and rode down the street in a motorcade, sitting on the back of a convertible*. My uncle had his office downtown on the top floor of a converted two story house. He and I and some of his buddies climbed out on the roof of the porch, where we could see over the crowds, and I was waving and yelling and basically going berserk as Kennedy came by. One of the men sitting in the car with him tugged at his shoulder and pointed me out, and he turned around and looked up, and gave me a great big grin and wave. I'm 54 years old now, and that remains a very strong, happy memory for me, as I hope that being noticed by the Pope will be for this little boy.

It is a tragic and horrible thing indeed that we live in times where the Pope going a little out of his way be nice to someone is newsworthy, but that's the world we've built. I think the Pope is a good man, and a sincere one, for all that I don't necessarily agree with some of his positions, and perhaps seeing him behave so will cause others to reflect on their own behaviour.


* And although I didn't really think about it at the time, that took some serious balls, all things considered.

[GUT]

Not wrong about the balls on Bobby, Ginger

[Mayerling]

While in a cynical age we can call actions like Francis' attention to this poor kid a "photo opportunity", I actually don't think he saw it that way. This is one good Pope (and I say that as a non-Catholic). He is not going to throw out everything in Catholicism, but he is emphasizing what some people in authority ignore or refuse to admit: the threat to the environment of global warming, the massive greed of the wealthy on this planet and the corresponding disparity of wealth between the top 1 to 10 percent and the remaining 99 to 90 percent of the population, the violence and increasing warfare threatening the world, the dangers to the millions of middle-eastern refugees (especially from Syria and Iraq), and even the issue of death penalty. You may think his message too simplistic to be acceptable, but you have to acknowledge these things had to be addressed by someone in some type of authority. As such these matters transcend religious barriers.

Francis is the most recent (to my memory) of a series of truly great Popes whom non-Catholics and Catholics have reason to recall: John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Francis make a groove of their own in history books that show that even an ancient, and in some ways corrupted, organization like the Roman Catholic Church still has great uses in it in modern time. Whether or not their example will continue is hard to guess, but one can hope that it does. So here's to the "People's Pope" who has left a tremendous impression at this time in North America and the world.

Jeff

[GUT]

As a non-Catholic, (maybe even anti-Catholic) he seems like a decent man [the current Pope I mean].

[Harry D]

I wonder if he stopped to explain to this lad why his all-knowing, all-benevolent God gave him a debilitating condition?

[Robert]

I'm sure the Ineffable One knows the answer to that - but He'd rather not say.