The church has sign language interpretors

The Catholic Church has taken steps of including the Deaf in its parish ministry and various ordinary and sacramental celebrations by employing the use of Sign Language.

This is aimed at bridging the gap between the hearing and the hearing impaired people to facilitate the expansion of the word of God.

The Founder and First Chaplain of the St. Martin Deaf Ministry (SMDM), Reverend Father Yao Kouamé René Dan of the Society of African Missions (SMA) disclosed this to The Spectator on Monday.

Currently, the Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Madina in the Greater Accra Region is one of the few churches that has Sign Language Interpreters who facilitate communication with the Deaf at church functions.

He explained that the vision of the Ministry was to build a foundation for an inclusive community that respects and recognises humanity rather than socio-economic and physical status of individuals.

Reverend Father Renè said that the initial response from the Deaf community had been positive because they saw the development as a channel to learn and express themselves.

He said as far as its mission was concerned, “members of St. Martin Deaf Ministry commit themselves to reach out and facilitate the integration process through evangelisation, education, and empowerment “.

He said if Christ came for all people, then there should not be a barrier when it came to access to the word of God.

The Chaplain of the St. Martin Deaf Ministry said it was heartwarming to see many Deaf people come to church with energy knowing that they were thought of like all others.

He admitted that, the use of Sign Language in communication had encouraged Deaf people to get actively involved in the activities of the church.

“Learning the Sign Language is a miracle to enter into communication with the non-hearing” he said and encouraged all persons to learn it.

The journey to ensure that Deaf persons do not feel discriminated against at Mass started during the Mass for the 140th anniversary of the arrival of the first SMA missionaries in Ghana with a total of about 30 Deaf people in 2020.

Reverend Father René said, “Sign Language should be a second language that must be learnt by all”.

Meanwhile,  the National Vice President of the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled, (GSPD) Mr. Courage Wormenor has commended the Catholic Church for the positive development and encouraged all churches to do same.

He said churches should acknowledge that like all others, having a disabled or deaf person in a church was equally a blessing because the “Bible teaches the church to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15-16) and every nation (Matthew 28:18-20).”

In an interview with this reporter on Wednesday, he said the disabled faced a lot of challenges including discrimination, stigmatization, social and physical barrier and that sadly, many of these challenges could be traced to unfounded religious beliefs.

“Soul winning of the disabled is necessary for every church but the building to host the disabled must be designed to suit them too; the disabled or the deaf should not be isolated from the congregation, the disabled must be among the people, and they must love them and offer chairs next to the “able” people so they fully and actively participate in the sermon”

“James 2: 1 – 6 talks about discrimination against the poor or the disabled the lessons every church must adopt to bring the disabled to the church” he said.

He noted that the Church of Christ, Church of Pentecost, and Jehovah’s Witness were some of the churches in Ghana that had the deaf ministry and so was happy that the Catholic Church had joined.

 Pictures of Reverend Father Renè (in white) doing a sign language interpretation at mass.

The National Vice President for the GSPD, Mr Courage Wormenor (in blue).

From Dzifa Tetteh Tay, Tema.