Conference of Pastoral Workers with Catholic Deaf People in Asia 7-14 October, 2005 Today was the first full day of the conference.  It started off with a visit to St. John Lateran, the mother church of all the churches of the Catholic Church.  It is the official church of the pope as the Bishop of Rome, and it is from St. John Lateran that the pope makes official pronouncements.  St. Peter's Basilica is bigger and more famous, but it is basically a church built upon the tomb of St. Peter and not the seat of the church's teaching authority even though the pope lives there. We returned to the Hotel Villa Rose for lunch (and supper, too) even though, due to a mix-up, all of us had to move from rooms in the Villa Rose to accommodations at the Hotel Ergife.  After lunch we walked 100 meters to a deaf school we are using for our conference.  The different national groups created displays showing their activities, and then Fr. Tom Coughlin spoke about his program.

8 October Asian Deaf Conference, Day 2   At St. John Lateran, Fr. Savino Castiglione gathered the crowd and prepared them for their visit to this famous church. After an initial walk through the church, we went to the baptistry, a special building where adults have been baptized for more than 1,000 years.  There our group renewed the promises they made at baptism.   Fr. Tom Coughlin, the first deaf priest ordained in the United States, was the celebrant for mass at St. John Lateran in a baroque side chapel. Every day we eat both lunch and supper at the Hotel Villa Rosa.  It was frustrating that because of a double-booking, our group had to move to another more distant hotel because the Villa Rosa is one block from our conference center. After the tour of St. John Lateran, we began our first formal session in the afternoon.  Fr. Harry Stocks (r) from India spoke while Fr. Savino Castiglione from Italy and the Philippines interpreted into Italian Sign Language.  About thirty Italian deaf people from different parts of the country came for the weekend. Fr. Vince Gomez explains the Malaysia exhibit.  Malaysia has a very active Catholic deaf program called R.E.A.C.H. which is a model for other deaf communities. Fr. Tom Coughlin (r) gave a presentation on his project to promote deaf vocations.  His program, associated with the Dominicans, is based in the San Francisco area but has participants from various countries. At the end of the day, the Italian deaf people who had come to the conference from as far away as Sicily were introduced to the participants from other countries.  This group is from the city of Rome itself.

Go to Helsinki Trip main page
Go to Deaf Activities main page
Go to Charlie Dittmeier's home page