The Vatican is launching #IamChurch, a series of five videos in which persons with disabilities, from different parts of the world, recount their experience of faith and affirm, “I am Church!”
Pope Francis, in his message to persons with disabilities on the occasion of the International Day dedicated to them, wrote:
Baptism makes each one of us a fully-fledged member of the ecclesial community and gives each one, without exclusion or discrimination, the possibility of exclaiming, “I am Church!” The Church, indeed, is your home! We, all together, are Church because Jesus has chosen to be our friend.
Echoing these words, the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life developed the #IamChurch campaign. Starting on December 6, the videos will be available on the YouTube channels of Vatican News and the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life and will be published weekly.
Each video aims to bring out the contribution that persons with disabilities offer to the ecclesial community on a daily basis. The work of evangelization carried out by some deaf young persons in Mexico, the monastery in France where some nuns with Down syndrome live out their vocation, the group of Italian youth with intellectual disabilities who participate in World Youth Days, are just a few examples of a broader reality that the campaign intends to start showing.
“We are convinced that if we are able to listen attentively to the voices of our sisters and brothers with disabilities” commented Gabriella Gambino, undersecretary of the Dicastery, “the ecclesial community will come out truly enriched.”
The videos were made by Poti Pictures, the film division of Coop Soc Il Cenacolo, and the first social film production company in the world, which makes commercials, short films, and feature films with actors with intellectual disabilities.
