CV NEWS FEED // A father and Catholic journalist explained in the keynote address for the annual gala of FIRE Foundation of Denver, an advocacy group for including children with disabilities at Catholic schools, how his son, who has Down syndrome, has changed his family.
Francis Xavier Maier was the keynote speaker for the organization’s gala on August 23, according to a LinkedIn post shared by the organization. The National Catholic Register reprinted his address with his permission.
Maier is the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church. He is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is also the former editor-in-chief for the National Catholic Register and personal advisor to Most Reverend Charles Chaput while he was Archbishop of Philadelphia.
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In the address, Maier shared that he and his wife, Suann, have been married for almost 54 years, and their son Dan, who has Down syndrome, is one of the reasons Suann and Fran’s marriage has been filled with happiness.
Dan has difficulties with words and expressing himself, Maier said. “But Dan, like a lot of persons with special needs, has a particular capacity for the religious,” he continued. “The pipes of his spirit don’t have the everyday blockage of worries that we call normal.” He explained that Dan prays the rosary multiple times a week and has a devotion to Mother Angelica.
“His imperfection opens a hole in the world that lets God in — not just into Dan’s life, but into ours,” Maier said.
Further, Dan has given his three adult siblings a gift, Maier said: “They’ll never disdain the weak. They’ll never ignore the disabled. They’ll never have contempt for the imperfect.”
“The imperfect among us — people whom the world sees as somehow less than human — are the test of just how ‘human’ the rest of us really are,” he said. “And it’s the task of the Church to speak for those people. And to care for them.”
Maier’s appeal to those at the gala was to generously support the FIRE Foundation, an organization that works to promote and expand inclusivity for children with disabilities in Catholic schools.
He described Catholic schools as “vital” in the present age, for all Catholic children, including those with disabilities.
He said, “The body is mortal. The soul is forever. If the life of an unborn child with Down syndrome is worth saving, then that soul is also worth feeding, and guiding, and forming deeply in the love of Jesus Christ.”
Maier’s full talk from Aug. 23 can be read here.
