Click here to see the article in the Boston Globe article:
Deaf seminarian has visual sense of religion
Shawn Carey, using sign language, talked about the challenges faced by hearing-impaired priests and parishioners. (GEORGE RIZER/GLOBE STAFF)
By Rich Barlow July 21, 2007
While on retreat at his California seminary, Shawn Carey found himself in a bind when the leader turned on some music. "Please focus on the music," the leader instructed, "and think about what words in the music impact you." Carey's face crumples in a mock cry at the memory. "How? How?" he pleads, using sign language interpreted by the Rev. Jeremy St. Martin, director of Deaf Catholic Ministries for the Archdiocese of Boston. "That bothered me a lot."
It was a rare instance of his disability (that's society's word; Carey calls it a gift from God) impeding his worship. Deaf from birth, cocooned in eternal silence, Carey may not be able to savor the majestic hymns that his fellow Catholics raise to their God. Instead, he taps into inaudible pathways to the divine.
"The deaf, we're very visual people," said the 34-year-old seminarian. "We depend on [vision] for learning; we can't hear. Whenever I see the Blessed Sacrament at adoration, the Eucharist, I see Christ there. I use visual imagination [to see] how Christ suffered and died. There's a picture inside my brain, like a movie. That's my spirituality. That's how I communicate with God."
Raised in Westfield, Carey, a candidate for the priesthood, is studying at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif., which has a program for deaf seminarians. He is to be ordained in 2009, when the archdiocese will give him his marching orders.
The passage of years and the accretion of understanding of its deaf community have opened doors in his church, he says, that once were barred.
"When I was a kid, my mother and father struggled to find support for the deaf," he recalled.
Carey had to study church-offered religious instruction with a private tutor, and he similarly received his First Communion, typically done with a class of peers, with just his family present.
"But now, it's all changed," he continued. It was a revelation when he attended his first Mass in American Sign Language on Ash Wednesday in 2000," he said. "It was in Watertown, St. Theresa's. I went to that church, and I was amazed. My jaw dropped."
Today, Carey said, "there's more access into the church, and deaf Catholics feel more connected. And that's why I'm excited to serve them, deaf and hearing both."
"He'll be able to serve the deaf, naturally," by celebrating Masses in sign language, "and serve the hearing by interpreting" their Mass for deaf parishioners, said St. Martin.
There are just eight deaf priests in the United States, according to the National Catholic Office for the Deaf, based in Maryland.
St. Martin, who took over Deaf Catholic Ministries two months ago, says he needs more time in the job to learn what the ministries' needs are, be it more signing priests or something else. (Deaf Catholic Ministries has a website, deafcatholic.org.)
But the archdiocese has a history of serving deaf people, he said. "Boston has a very good reputation for service to deaf Catholics in the country."
That sentiment may not be universal. Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented more than 80 deaf and hearing-impaired Catholic clients in various cases, said that "the archdiocese wasn't paying attention" to accommodating their needs, a deficiency he said he hopes Carey could help remedy.
The thought of becoming a priest first flickered for Carey when he was a freshman in his Catholic high school, when one of his teachers, who was a priest, impressed him.
That interest subsided for a time, as he took a job after college with an investment firm. He enjoyed the job but felt he was held back, perhaps unintentionally, for his deafness. "It's hard to receive a promotion," he said. He was told that his inability to participate in phone calls was an issue.
More important, he said, "the hound of heaven was following me." (The reference is to a poem by Francis Thompson: "I fled him, down the nights and down the days . . . From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.")
That signed Mass on Ash Wednesday seven years ago launched a journey that ultimately led to the seminary.
Throughout, deafness has never struck him as a barrier.
"If God made us all the same," he said, "it'd be a boring world for sure."
Questions, comments or story ideas can be sent to spiritual@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
