Proud to Be Deaf: Saintliness in the Catholic Deaf Community in South Africa from 1874-1994 - Hardcover

by Mark James (Author)

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.