In God's Image, Paperback/Peter A. Comensoli

Descriere

In God's Image: Recognizing the Profoundly Impaired as Persons is a bold Catholic argument in defense of the profoundly impaired. While a range of theological voices can now be heard speaking up on behalf of those who live their lives at the extremes of the human condition, few voices have been explicitly Catholic. Comensoli draws on the irreplaceable contribution of St. Thomas Aquinas to forge an engagement with one of the leading thinkers in the theology of the disabled, Professor Hans Reinders. While recognizing the crucial contribution that Reinders has made, Comensoli situates our perception of the cognitively impaired within the horizon of God's own image, refusing a reduction of the substantialist position the Catholic tradition has always valued. This is linked to the fresh and countercultural community life pioneered by Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche communities. For Comensoli, the profoundly impaired are persons whose personhood cannot be recognized outside of the condition of their impairment, and through which God's Image is perceived in all its paradoxical implications. "In this groundbreaking study, Bishop Comensoli turns the usual question about being in the image of God on its head. Drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas, he argues that the profoundly cognitively impaired are in the image of God by nature. There is thus no need to prove that they bear the image of God. It is we, the 'rationally capacious, ' who have the capacity to mar the image of God by conscious opposition to God's grace. Comensoli's book is a must-read for anyone interested in theology and intellectual disability." --Medi Ann Volpe, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University "In this important book, Peter Comensoli lets the Catholic voice be heard loud and clear: just like all other human beings, people with profound disabilities are persons because 'person' is the answer to the question of how a human being is who he or she is. In hono