The Gift of Disability and the Hope for Healing – Prof. Paul Gondreau

The Thomistic Institute

Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Thomism, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Catholicism, Philosophy, Christianity

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Paul Gondreau argues that disability, though a real physical wound of human nature, can also be a profound gift because it deepens participation in Christ’s suffering and points toward healing in the resurrection.

This lecture was given on March 9th, 2026, at University of Oxford.

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About the Speakers:

Paul Gondreau is professor of theology at Providence College, where he has taught for 28 years. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation on Christ's full humanity (Christ's human passions/emotions) under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), Christian anthropology, the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, the biblical vision of Aquinas' theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Keywords: Cerebral Palsy, Cross, Disability, Grace, Healing, Hope, Human Dignity, Resurrection, Suffering

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:21.7	Thomistic Institute.org. So first let me begin with my bona fides, as it were, with respect to disability,
0:31.1	since I've been living up close and personal with disability for 21 years now. Namely, my son Dominic. He has a severe form of cerebral palsy.
0:40.3	He has actually two forms of cerebral palsy, one superimposed on the other. His condition was actually
0:47.3	diagnosed here in Oxford. I was a research fellow here at Blackfries 20 years ago, and it was then,
0:52.3	he was one year old at the time so it was
0:55.3	diagnosed here in oxford there's not one moment in his life when my son has not known what it
1:02.4	means to suffer since his disability is severe so it's given me 21 years of a daily meditation on the
1:10.6	meaning of suffering.
1:11.6	So just let me begin there because I'll be using disability and suffering interchangeably.
1:17.6	That is a controversial move.
1:19.6	But the reason is because disability can have various meanings, depending on how one approaches the issue,
1:30.3	it can have a medical meaning, it has a social meaning,
1:33.3	it has a rights meaning,
1:36.3	it has a cultural meaning.
1:38.3	But the meaning that I shall be employing
1:41.3	is more metaphysical and theological in nature.
1:48.0	In that my perspective, which is a to mystic one,
1:52.3	stands against the backdrop of a robust metaphysics of human nature and of a theological account of the meaning of suffering.
	...

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