CSDC 148

Persons with disabilities are fully human subjects, with rights and duties: “in spite of the limitations and sufferings affecting their bodies and faculties, they point up more clearly the dignity and greatness of man”²⁹¹ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 22: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 634.. Since persons with disabilities are subjects with all their rights, they are to be helped to participate in every dimension of family and social life at every level accessible to them and according to their possibilities. The rights of persons with disabilities need to be promoted with effective and appropriate measures: “It would be radically unworthy of man, and a denial of our common humanity, to admit to the life of the community, and thus admit to work, only those who are fully functional. To do so would be to practise a serious form of discrimination, that of the strong and healthy against the weak and sick”²⁹² John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 22: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 634.. Great attention must be paid not only to the physical and psychological work conditions, to a just wage, to the possibility of promotion and the elimination of obstacles, but also to the affective and sexual dimensions of persons with disabilities: “They too need to love and to be loved, they need tenderness, closeness and intimacy”²⁹³ John Paul II, Message for the International Symposium on the Dignity and Rights of the Mentally Disabled Person, 5 January 2004, 5: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 21 January 2004, p. 6., according to their capacities and with respect for the moral order, which is the same for the non-handicapped and the handicapped alike.