Description
This thought-provoking book details the history of Catholic ministry to the Deaf community in South Africa over 120 years. This history provides a backdrop to Deaf people’s emerging understanding of themselves as a people imbued with dignity and having their own language and culture.
The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’ understanding of saintliness, which is the ethical pursuit of prioritising a suffering neighbour’s needs above those of one’s own, provides a lens through which to, both sympathetically and critically, read this history.
The book ends by paying tribute to the Deaf people in the Catholic Church who contributed significantly to raise Deaf people’s awareness of their innate dignity and of sign language as a gift from God.
Mark James’ book constitutes a substantive original contribution to the history of Deaf ministry in the Catholic Church in South Africa from 1874-1994. James, through careful archival research, provides a Catholic perspective which will become an invaluable resource for ministers (Deaf and Hearing) throughout the world. The book is also demanding and provocative because it is a spiritual witness to the giftedness of the Deaf community inspiring hope. Employing the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, James awakes the consciousness of the reader to put the conscience into question to think otherwise about the different abilities of Catholic Deaf community in South Africa. Accordingly, the book inspires newness, boldness, and resilience in ministry to approach the Kingdom of God and encounter the face of Christ crucified (crucified by the forces of phonocentrism and audism). There are many lessons to be learnt that gives voice and appeal to what Ruben Xulu’s image evokes: “Christ was Africa crucified”. In sum, the book pronounces words of blessing to remember and sign “a new journey” together from the heart.
Associate Professor Glenn Morrison,
School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame,
Fremantle, Australia.
James’ inspiring work describes the history of the Catholic Church’s ministry to Catholic Deaf people in South Africa, highlighting its achievements and shortcomings. This book resonates with Pope Francis’ challenge that the Church become the merciful face of Christ in the world. This entails being passionate about meeting people who, like the Deaf community, are different and marginalised. It is to engage in a process of conversion, where we overcome our indifference by learning sign language so that Deaf people can feel more at home in the Church. In so doing, we witness to a more authentic encounter with the Risen Christ.
Archbishop Dabula Mpako
Archdiocese of Pretoria,
Head of the Office of Ministry to the Deaf Community.
In this highly original piece of research, the author traces the history of the Catholic Deaf community in South Africa and links this to the changing understanding of being Deaf arising from a new cultural frame of reference that prioritizes dignity and autonomy over conformity to a norm as the distinguishing criteria of being human. This new frame is deepened through the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, a set of ideas that in turn is interpretive of ‘being religious’ in a new way. There is a kind of symphonic structure to the book, with the final movement sketching a number of examples of ‘saintliness’ in the community of Deaf people in South Africa, lifting the whole narrative to a higher and more inspiring level.
Professor Patrick Giddy,
Senior Research Associate in Philosophy and Religion, University of KwaZulu-Natal,
author of Aristotle in Africa (UJ Press, 2025).
About the author
Mark James OP is a Dominican priest who has worked with Catholic Deaf communities in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg and the Diocese of Manzini, Eswatini for the past 20 years. He is co-ordinator of the Office for Ministry to the Deaf Community under the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC). He is also an honorary lecturer in the History of Christianity, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg
