Böcker av Pia Matthews

Many people think that profound disability presents us with a real problem, often because it seems difficult to connect with someone who does not seem to think or act like us. Positioning profound disability in this way immediately sets up a 'them' and 'us', where the person with profound disability becomes the problematic 'other'.

Many people think that profound disability presents us with a real problem, often because it seems difficult to connect with someone who does not seem to think or act like us. Positioning profound disability in this way immediately sets up a 'them' and 'us', where the person with profound disability becomes the problematic 'other'.

This book dissects the ethical challenges faced by healthcare chaplains every day. Bringing together case studies, legal advice and invitations for contemplation, this book helps both professional and volunteer chaplains to reflect on their practice and provide the highest level of support to patients.

Drawing on rich insights from the early Church Fathers, Discerning Persons addresses the neglected issue of disablism and how discriminatory attitudes fail to treat people with profound disabilities as persons. This discrimination can be found in the field of bioethics, where the stakes are often high and a matter of life or death.

Drawing on Pope John Paul's extensive theological and ethical writings this important book explores the status of people with profound intellectual disabilities who some regard simply as 'non-acting'. This book demonstrates that all human beings, whatever their situations or capacities, are acting persons made in the image of God and that all principles whether from Catholic Social Teaching or from Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body apply to every human being as much as to any other. The book also considers liberation theologies of disability and the Pope's reflections on suffering as well as the controversial area of the provision of hydration and nutrition for one most profoundly disabled person, the person in persistent vegetative state. In addition it reflects on spirituality in the life of the profoundly disabled based on Karol Wojty¿a's thesis on St John of the Cross. As the title of the book explains, the profoundly disabled are only apparently non-acting: no one can discount the possibility of an inner spiritual life and alongside all human beings the profoundly disabled have spiritual needs, are called to a life of holiness and are asked to cooperate in that calling as far as they are able. Moreover, all have a part to play in God's plan of salvation for all are 'workers in God's vineyard'.