Silent Worship

In Detroit last week some 100 worshipers and two priests sang and prayed as silently as a Quaker meeting. They were participating in a mission for the deaf and dumb in St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church. Services were carried on in sign language by Fathers William Bernard Heitker and Raymond Charles Kalter.

Lit by two floodlights, so that everyone could see him, Father Heitker stood before the grey and yellow marble altar. Worshipers intently watched his hands and lips. While his busy fingers formed signs, his lips formed words, which he spoke in a low voice. Most of the congregation were deaf-mutes, who followed the sermon by means of sign language. Those merely hard of hearing read his lips.

Like most of his sermons, Father Heitker's sermon last week was short (it tires the deaf to concentrate for long on hands or lips). Then came Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. With signs priests and people sang O Salutaris Hostia, Tantum ergo. With signs they prayed for victory ("Oh Lord who art stronger than all the armies. . . .") and for the armed forces.

For 18 years Father Heitker, 46, has been at Cincinnati's St. Rita School for the Deaf. He is now so proficient at sign sermons that he gets ahead of his listeners, has to slow down. (And deaf-mutes talk much faster with their fingers than other people talk with their tongues.) To preach a sermon vocally and sign it at the same time is like preaching in two languages. Sign language is literal: "man" is touching the brow (man tipping hat); "woman" is touching the chin (woman tying bonnet strings). It has no syntax, consists of isolated words which the deaf piece together to make sense. "Man, working, tall, house, fall" means "A man working on the roof of a tall house fell off."

For confession, deaf-mute penitents are given a printed list of common sins, mark those they wish to confess, hand the paper to the priest. He writes the penance and instructions on the paper, then returns it. Others who wish to see him outside the confessional go to the rectory parlor and "whisper" their problems. A mute "whispers" by shielding his hand inside his partly opened coat as he signs. A woman makes signs behind her purse.

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