Indispensable: A Catholic Guide to Welcoming Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

There are approximately two million Catholics with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) living in America today. For every hundred individuals on a parish registry, there should be at least two or three with IDDs in the pews. Yet they are noticeably absent from our churches. Do these members of the Church and their families feel like they belong in our parish communities? Do they even feel welcome at all? 

Indispensable, edited by Mark Bradford, is a groundbreaking exploration of how Catholic parishes can prepare to spiritually form and serve people with IDDs and their families. This inspiring collection features essays from a variety of disability experts and advocates, who offer insights from Church guidance, academic research, and their own extensive experience. It also examines a wide range of issues related to the intersection of parish life and IDDs, including chapters on prenatal diagnosis, perinatal loss, the sacraments, the liturgy, education, relationships, and more.

St. Paul teaches us that “the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor. 12:22). For a vulnerable population like those with IDDs, the importance of the Church in creating a place of belonging can’t be overstated. The Body of Christ should shine as a welcoming and supportive community for all its members. This vital parish resource will assist readers of all backgrounds—pastors, parents, and all those who work in disability ministry at any level or who are eager to support it—in drawing those with IDDs more fully into the communion of the Church. 

Mark Bradford is the Fellow for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the Word on Fire Institute and the author of Let Us Pray: Catholic Prayers for All Abilities. For over twenty years, he has been blessed to serve in leadership positions in various church ministries, including as the founding president of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation in the US. Mark and his wife, Denise, are parents to Thomas, their sixth of seven children (and first son), who happens to have been gifted with an extra twenty-first chromosome. Mark is a passionate advocate for those born with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. He especially advocates, at every opportunity, against the threat of abortion following a prenatal diagnosis. The Bradfords reside in the Philadelphia suburbs.