Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

19CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTIONThere is something special and unique about being a member of thehuman species, quite apart from the particular skills and attributes that humansuse to actualize and realize the gift of life they've been given. Human beings arepersons by virtue of the fact that they are human beings, particular objects ofGod's love and salvific intentions.... Our personhood is not defined by what we can or cannot do but bywhose we are and where we come from. Creationally we are seen as 'very good.'All are members of the human family. 2The stigmatized individual tends to hold the same beliefs about identity that wedo; this is a pivotal fact. His (sic) deepest feelings about what he is may be hissense of being a 'normal person,’ a human being like anyone else, a person,therefore, who deserves a fair chance and a fair break. 32 Wannenwetsch, Bernd. "Angels with Clipped Wings: The Disabled as Key to theRecognition of Personhood." In Theology, Disability and the New Genetics: Why ScienceNeeds the Church, edited by John Swinton and Brian Brock, 182-200. (London and NewYork: T & T Clark, 2007), 11-12.3 Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. (Englewood Cliffs:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), 7.