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26 JOHN STREET, PERTH
No. 2191
P.O. BOX 50 PERTH ABERDEEN STREET.
6000
Perth, Thursday, June 19, 1980
Video aids boost for deaf
Instead of English, Greek or Italian, the "languages" at a national meeting for Catholic Hearing Impaired people in Melbourne last week were signed language, finger-spelling and oral commuinication. "The Mass was in the language of the people" said Father Paul Pitzen, Perth, Chaplain to the deaf, who was main celebrant of the Mass and homilist. Also attending the conference was Mrs. Barbara Harris, of the W.A. Catholic Pastoral Institute, who conducted a special workshop on the preparation of liturgy for hearing-impaired people. As part of the preparation, all participants had a copy of the gospel text of the multiplication of loaves. Slides were shown on scenes from the story and discussion was held on dramatic presentation of the story.
REAR SCREEN Small groups then began preparing thoughts for the homily, prayers of intercession and the communion reflection. With the help of a projector, slides were chosen to best reflect the prayers and reflections.
Artists made some original drawings for display during the Mass and transparencies were made of the main points of the gospel. Mrs Harris explained that what was accomplished in one hour at the conference would normally be spread over a week in Perth. A special rear projection screen had been brought from Perth and it was place behind and above the tallest of the four priest celebrants. The rear projection method left the front of the sanctuary free of projectors, electric leads.
MIRROR The absence of interpreters allowed the congregation to concentrate on what was happening at the altar. In the free area in front of the altar the gospel was presented dramatically and details projected on to the screen made it necessary for the priest giving the homily to make a minimum of manual communication to get
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across the meaning of the reflection. To follow what was being projected on the screen above him, Father Pitzen used a small mirror on the altar. For the congregation the whole room had been looped with an electric wire that allowed people with hearing aids to pick up the amplifier signal direct without interference.
CLUES Father Pitzen explained that in a normal church an electric loop could also be installed but it might be restricted to certain seats at the front. People took part in the musical segments by using percussion instruments. Visual clues were given so that they could keep time with the music from guitar and organ. The hearing-impaired people present were impressed with this new experience of liturgy.
'EXCELLENT' "Excellent" was the comrnent of a university professor, totally deaf from•birth. Another siad: "We read the Scriptures and we understand with our heads but when you asked what does it mean from the inside I have never t hought about that before. "The story means more to me now." "The story", said another, "will always bring to me the pictures of what we did today."
SHARING For another the total experience was a challenge toward growth, she said. "The sharing of the loaves and fishes is like us sharing our gifts here," she added. I felt silly being in the dramatization of the Gospel at first, thenIthought of the little boy and I got really involved helping others to understand." Perhaps the most telling of all was: "This is the first time anyone has ever asked us to prepare anything for the Liturgy." To stimulate family discussion afterwards those present were given copies of booklets that are distributed at West Australian Masses for the deaf, giving background reading activities and ideas for family prayer. Mrs Harris explained that the techniques demonstrated at the national (CONTINUED P.3),
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A LONE RIGIDITY? But today's families have thrown in the towel The journalists' strike, we were told, was depriving Perth readers of much worthwhile without a blush. Catholics are no less guilty than others for the reporting and feature writing. Judging by a feature on the page 3 of the West double standard that has been held up to their Australian last Monday we have not been missing children. Sanctimonious disapproval of juvenile sex is much. just not good enough if it is merely a veneer of soap One would have expected more than a opera feature from a senior staff writer to be respectability. It is not good enough for a parent smugly at served up as the lead story on the paper's second home to claim that what they cannot see ought most important news page. There may be indeed a lamentable increase in not to worry them the sexual activity of Perth's teenagers. BANKRUPTCY But is this news to be the excuse for what was If the citizens of Perth have to be told these no more than a blatant and emotional free adver- facts then they can hang their heads in shame at tisement for an abortion service? the moral bankruptcy that has overtaken family In what was supposed to be a balanced news life. report, were no other sources available to corThe bleating of so many enlightened educators roborate these facts? that spraying the teenage brain with contraceptive knowledge would restore a proper respect of OFFENSIVENESS a man for a woman, however young, is shown up The height of offensiveness was to allow the for its phoniness. person interviewed to lapse into the level of a But if the citizens of Perth are to be force-fed goodies and baddies melodrama. the myth that any constructive sexual While the counsellors, we were informed, counselling is unattainable except by so-called turned out to be mature compassionate women, compassionate aborting of its young, then the the Catholics had to be hauled in as the epitome of ravages of some future nuclear or ecological rigidity. holocaust need not worry us. Are there not also rigid Jewish, Anglican, MusThe national suicide has already begun. lim, Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist or non-religious people in Perth? If the pages of The West Australian are available to people to lampoon Catholics in this way, journalists can only blame themselves if the public take a dim view of their objectivity. A Pregnancy Help counsellor said in this paper recently there isn't a teenage girl becoming pregnant who does not think that her parents will kill her on finding out.
CAN BE TOLD There has been no such murder, the counsellor observed, and not a case where a mother or father, Catholic or otherwise, who with proper help has not given such a girl all the love and support she needed and been prepared to support their own grandchild. Let it be clear that the issue is not with revelations about juvenile promiscuity, however lurid. Passing on standards of sexual morality from one generation to the next is always a complex and difficult area for parents. Touching on such delicate matters is often an embarrassing test of the relationship in a family.
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