FrRickCurrySJ.DisabledTheater&Veterans
Fr. Rick Curry has died; he was born with a birth defect that he came to consider a gift of God. He endured so much grief as a child about not having a hand that he enrolled in acting classes to give him confidence – and that led him to ministry, where he started a theater company for actors with disabilities and later established a writers’ workshop and a bakery for disabled veterans. He was a longtime Jesuit brother ordained at 66 after an angry veteran demanded that he hear his confession. Curry explained that a person has to be called by God and the Church in order to be a priest, and that he hadn’t been. “Well, I’m calling you!” the man insisted – and no one had an answer for that. After completing a Master’s in Divinity, Curry was ordained, though it took a special dispensation from the Vatican, which requires that priests be able to hold up bread with both hands. Curry was a bit amused, because he’d been lifting things up with a hand and an arm his whole life, and could even bake the bread to show his bishop how. (Michelle B. Agins/The New York Times)
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