PANAJI
For the first time a mass was celebrated through sign language at the SFX Training Centre for Children with Disability at Old Goa on Sunday morning which was celebrated by Fr Joseph Thermadam, who earlier in May this year became the only deaf-and-mute to be ordained a Catholic Priest in India.
Thermadam celebrated the mass at 9.30 am -- silent through sign language -- and in the congregation were 120 deaf Catholic pilgrims who accompanied him along with deaf members of the Goan Catholic laity.
Fr Henry Falcao, who heads the Exposition Committee of the Church addressed members of the congregation after the mass and later the 120 members of the Indian Deaf Catholic Association interacted with the Goan counterparts.
Incidentally, Fr Thermadam is the first deaf Indian Catholic priest and only the twenty-sixth world-wide.
St Francis Xavier Training Centre for Children with Disability coordinated the celebration of the mass along with DRAG (Disability Rights Association of Goa).
Fr Thermadom (38) is part of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Thrissur, Kerala and was ordained a Catholic priest earlier in May this year by Archbishop Mar Andrews Thazhath, making him the first with this disability to join India's Catholic clergy and Asia's second.
Born deaf and speech-impaired, Fr Thermadom studied in Mumbai and obtained a BSc degree before entering religious life with the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate in the USA.
On returning to India he joined Congregation of the Holy Cross in 2017, eventually getting ordained a priest this year.
