CENTER SECTION: CATHOLICS WITH DISABILITIES
Data About Disabilites

by Mark M. Gray  |  Summer 2009

Most Catholics, like everyone else, will experience a disability at some point in their life. Disability can occur at any age. Thus, ministering to people with disabilities can range from being sure that a Catholic school has the resources needed to teach children diagnosed with autism, to helping a veteran come to terms with a serious injury, to ensuring that the parish sound system allows everyone to hear clearly.

How many Catholics have a disability? Some of the best data regarding disability are collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the surveys from which these data are derived do not include any questions about religion. This limits the possibility of calculating a precise estimate for the number of U.S. Catholics who have a disability.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are more than 50 million people in the United States (18 percent of the population) who have some level of disability. This includes 4 million children between the ages of six and fourteen. The risks of having a disability increase with age. Seventy-two percent of the population age eighty or older have a disability. Women are more likely than men to have a diagnosed disability (20 percent of women compared to 17 percent of men).

There are few recent surveys that include both a disability question and a religion question that would allow one to estimate the size of the Catholic population with a potential diagnosed disability.

The 2005 Baylor Study of Religion asked adult respondents if they were working in the week prior to being surveyed. If they were not, they were asked if this was related to a disability or injury. Four percent of Catholic respondents indicated that they were not working due to a disability or injury.

The General Social Survey (GSS), one of the most widely used surveys, has regularly asked respondents both their religion and the following, “Would you say your own health, in general, is excellent, good, fair, or poor?” Since 1972, an average of about one in five Catholics (21 percent) have either responded “fair” or “poor” to this question, with typically only 4 percent indicating “poor.” There has been little change in these figures over the years, so there is no evidence that subjective feelings of health have changed much in recent decades. Also, Catholics respond no differently to this question than non-Catholics.

Both the GSS and the Baylor study focus on people’s perceptions of well-being at the time the survey is conducted. Both of the surveys indicate that about 4 percent of the adult Catholic population potentially has a serious disability affecting their lives. Four percent of the adult, self-identified Catholic population of the United States is equivalent to 2.8 million individuals.

Yet well-being is not a good approximation of disability. In fact, many who have been diagnosed with a disability would cringe if someone referred to them as disabled or, even worse, handicapped. These terms have fallen out of favor as person-first language has been adopted widely in recent years. This language focuses on the person before the condition and on ability over disability. This is not just an exercise in political correctness but in honesty—in not allowing a disability to define someone who has the ability to do many things.

Disability does not make someone disabled. For example, Oscar Pistrorius had his lower legs amputated halfway between his knees and ankles as an infant. Today, I would bet that Oscar, with his carbon fiber artificial limbs, could beat anyone reading this article in a 100-meter dash. Similarly, Stephen Hawking, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, has dealt with progressive amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as an adult. Although he is now in a wheelchair with no ability to speak, there is likely no one else alive today who can communicate more eloquently the physics of time and space. Referring to either of these men as disabled would be incorrect and it would focus on an aspect of their being that does not limit them from accomplishing extraordinary things.

Existing survey data regarding religion and well-being are not a good fit for measuring disability, so we must rely on Census data and definitions to come to some approximation of the number of Catholics with a disability. The U.S. Census Bureau definition includes anyone over the age of five who is living in the general population (excluding institutionalized settings or the military) who has been diagnosed with any of the following:

• Long-lasting blindness or severe vision impairment
• Long-lasting deafness or severe hearing impairment
• A long-lasting condition that substantially limits one or more basic physical activities such as walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting, or carrying
• Six months or more of difficulty in learning, remembering, or concentrating
• Six months or more of difficulty in dressing, bathing, or getting around inside the home
• Sixteen or older and six months or more of difficulty in going outside the home alone to shop or visit a doctor’s office
• Sixteen or older and six months or more of difficulty in working at a job or business

If one extrapolates from the total number of people with disabilities as described above in the United States and the percentage of the U.S. population that self-identifies as Catholic in nationally representative surveys, we can estimate that the number of Catholics with a disability likely exceeds 11 million.

How is the church doing in ministering to this population? The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University has asked a few questions regarding ministry to people with disabilities in its surveys.

Between 1996 and 2003, CARA conducted 575 in-pew surveys at Catholic parishes around the country. Although these do not represent a random sample of parishes, the results reflect the attitudes of many Mass-attending Catholic parishioners in the United States. In many of these in-pew surveys parishioners attending Mass were asked to evaluate their parish’s outreach to the “sick or disabled” or simply the “disabled” (in more recent surveys CARA has changed its term to be person-first and now asks about “those with disabilities”). When asked about the “sick and disabled” 80 percent of respondents evaluated their parish outreach to this group as being either “good” or “excellent.” When the term only includes “disabled” this percentage drops slightly to 71 percent.

In a nationally representative survey of Catholic parents conducted in 2005, CARA asked those who did not have a child enrolled in a Catholic school the reasons why they chose some other type of schooling. Fifteen percent of these parents said it was because the Catholic school “is unable to meet the needs of children with disabilities.” Much more often, parents cited factors such as tuition costs, lack of transportation, lack of tuition assistance, and competition from other schools for their choice.

CARA surveys do indicate that severe disabilities can affect aspects of worship and parish life. In a 2007 national survey of self-identified Catholic adults, 26 percent of respondents who said they attend Mass less than once a week said “health problems or a disability” at least “somewhat” explained why they had missed Mass at least once in the last six months.

It seems to be the case that Catholic parishes and schools could do more to reach out to and serve the needs of people with disabilities. The church should also not lose sight of parishioners who are not in the pews every Sunday because their absence may be beyond their control.

As birth rates have slowed and medicine has increased life expectancy in the United States, the number of people with age-related disabilities has grown as a proportion of the total population. This growth is expected to continue. As always the church should plan accordingly and do more to investigate the ministry needs of this growing population. Catholic parishes, schools, and hospitals of the 21st century will need to function differently from the way they did in the 19th and 20th centuries to ensure accessibility.

Mark M. Gray, Ph.D., is a research associate and director of Catholic Polls at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.