Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.
About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 1989)
Vol. 27 No. 30 Thursday, September 7, 1989 $15.00 Per Year Confessions For The Hearing-Impaired McINERNEY Cecilia Converse and Father Bill Hoffman model the sacrament of confession using American Sign Language. Father Hoffman, who has been studying ASL, is now ready to begin administering confession and other sacraments to the hearing-impaired in the archdiocese. Ms. Con verse was his tutor in ASL for several months. .. . "Extraordinary Means" Priest Who Signs Available To Deaf Church Calls Ga. Case Not Suicide BY GRETCHEN REISER Deaf Catholics can now go to confession in the arch diocese to a priest who can sign. After five months of private tutoring and two weeks at a special camp to learn American Sign Language, Father Bill Hoffman, pastor of St. Michael’s, Gainesville, is ready to serve the deaf in this way. Until now, no priest in the archdiocese had the skill. The deaf could receive the sacrament of confession only if accompanied by a hearing and signing person who could interpret their confession. “I’m ready to try,” Father Hoffman said. Toni Miralles, a St. Jude’s lay minister working with special education and the handicapped, “really said there is no priest here who can hear confessions in sign language,” he recalled. “There was a need there and I didn’t see anybody meeting the need.” He can now hear confessions in ASL. He has a TDD (telephone device for the deaf) on his phone at St. Michael’s. The deaf can call 1-534-3338 during hours when the office is open and can type a message for Father Hoffman. His first sacramental visit alone came recently when he was called to visit a deaf person with AIDS in Northside Hospital and was able to administer the sacrament of the sick. Although his parish is Gainesville, he said he would cooperate as much as possible with people living elsewhere in the archdiocese and make ar rangements for them to come to Gainesville or to meet them. His availability came as welcome news to Sister Rita Baum, SSJ, executive director of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities. She said there are about 53 priests throughout the U.S. who can sign, seven of them deaf. The camp at which he polished his skills, Camp Mark Seven in Old Forge, N.Y., was begun by Father Tom Coughlin, the first born-deaf person to be ordain ed a Catholic priest in the U.S. (Continued on page 6) BY GRETCHEN REISER In a debated Georgia case involving a paralyzed man on a ventilator, the archdiocese of Atlanta submitted a court brief saying that permitting the man to stop using the machine is not the equivalent of suicide. Instead, the friend-of-the-court brief said, the use of a ventilator in the case of Larry James McAfee is an “ex traordinary means of preserving life.” Morally this means the Catholic Church believes the patient is free either to continue to use the ventilator or to decide to discontinue us ing it, “even though such interruption will end in death,” the document said. McAfee, 33, was paralyzed from the neck down in a May 5, 1985 motorcycle accident and since then has been unable to breathe on his own. Single and without dependents, he BY PAULA DAY The range and maturity of catechist formation in the archdiocese was evident at the recent Catechetical In stitute sponsored by the archdiocesan Department of Education. Over 900 participated in the three-day program at St. John Neumann parish in Lilburn. The workshops were presented by and large by local catechists. Participants in cluded classroom teafchers, directors of religious educa tion, catechists, school administrators, pastors, parishioners and the program offered 50 different sessions to meet their needs. “As the new director of the Office of Religious Education,” Marylyn McDonald said, “I was extremely impressed with the quality of presentations offered by the speakers who, for the most part, live locally. My experience with other state and diocesan institutes has been the need to bring in speakers from the outside. What tremendous resources we have right here in our own archdiocese.” Workshops dealt with storytelling as a way to catechize; asked in Fulton County Superior Court for permission to turn off his ventilator himself and be provided with a sedative for the pain and distress he would experience prior to death.' Judge Edward H. Johnson conducted a bedside hearing with McAfee, along with lawyers for Grady Hospital, and the patient’s statement that he is competent to decide his own treatment and that his relatives do not oppose his re quest and that his condition is irreversible were not con tested. “The sole question before the Court appears to be whether Mr. McAfee, a competent adult, has the right to refuse extraordinary medical treatment, without in terference from third parties, even though such refusal will likely result in his immediate death,” the brief said. (Continued on page 6) with ministering to persons with AIDS; with sex education; with current concerns like satanism and “the rapture.” There were sessions on Sacred Scripture, sacramental preparation, liturgy planning and prayer. The diversity of offerings reflected ari effort on the part of planners to respond to critiques and requests from 1988 in stitute participants, according to Bob Melevin, arch diocesan consultant for catechist formation who headed the planning committee. Some offerings were to meet catechists’ certification re quirements and Saturday’s presentations focused par ticularly on catechists’ interests. Other offerings, for exam ple, one workshop on satanism and another on teaching sex ual morality to the young were what planners believed to be topics of concern to many Catholics. Catholic school principals required attendance at at least some of the Aug. 24-26 sessions by their faculty. As a result, planners also addressed the interests of teachers who are not Catholic with workshops like “What Is Catholicism?” and “Christian Classroom Management.” (Continued on page 8) 900 Teachers Learn At Institute
