Each year, the NCOD(National Catholic Office of the Deaf) holds an annual "Pastoral Week" for those people involved with deaf ministry in the US and Canada. This year, over 90 people attended at the W Atlanta Hotel, Atlanta, GA. The meeting began Sat, the 15th. Deacon Ralph Hinch, Bob and Maggie Swatek, Patricia Slisz and Diane Russell attended from Chicago.The week previous Atlanta had been hit by a snow storm that paralyzed the city for three days. then, their football team lost on Saturday night, so the mood in the town was NOT happy! Sat and Sunday were workshops, regional meetings and Mass. Patricia Slisz was busy promoting the ICDA Conference for Chicago this coming summer.
I arrived Sunday evening. Monday morning at 7:30am, we had a breakfast meeting with 16 people re: the coming changes in the Roman Missal. The issue: how to prepare sign-language interpreters for these changes, especially interpreters in areas where there is no organized deaf ministry. We ended up with a good plan that we believe will reach those interpreters in isolated areas as well as large cities. At 9am, Fr. Mike Medas of Boston gave a very good presentation on working with deaf teens and young people. Following his talk, were several break-out sessions following up with practical advice on doing our work in the deaf community.
Tuesday morning we had another meeting at 7:30am on MFP (The Ministry Formation Program for the Deaf) located in Chicago. We had about 25 people attend. 9am was the business meeting of NCOD, followed by committee meetings. That afternoon, I gave a presentation on the Vatican Confertences involving deaf ministry in 2008, 2009, and June 2010. Mass brought an end to the Conference. The NCOD Conference in 2012 will be 1/14-17, Boston, MA.
About half of the participants were deaf, a good sign that more and more deaf want to take up responsibility for this work.