Classes are coming up on their end, but to stretch your minds and hearts beyond exams and essays, you could stroll to Karpen Hall at week’s end, Friday & Saturday April 20-21 for a free and open-to-all conference on “Philosophy of Disability.”
Three of Saturday’s talks—”Disabilities in Heaven” (Dr Richard Cross, Notre Dame), “Personhood, Ableism, and the Philosophy of Religion” (Dr. Scott Williams, UNCA), and “The Moral Significance of Being Human” (Dr. Eva Feder Kittay, Stony Brook U.)—sound like they’d have significant bearing on what our Catholic Faith teaches on the topic: unceasing proclamation of the Dignity and Sacredness of all persons, regardless of circumstance, inherent from being created in the Image and Likeness of God (see Gen 1:27, John 9:3, Catechism 356ff & 1700ff) and call for protection and care, always, for the “least of these.”
Jean Vanier, Catholic philosopher and activist writes poignantly: “I’m not sure that we can really understand the message of Jesus, if we haven’t listened to the weak, to people who have been pushed aside, humiliated, seen of no value. At the same time through them we see that we too are broken, that we have our handicaps. And our handicaps are around about elitism, about power, around feeling that value is to have power.”
https://events.unca.edu/event/conference-philosophy-disability
Asheville Catholic Campus Ministry 