IN A WHEELCHAIR - FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT WAS A VERY EFFECTIVE PRESIDENT............

Sixty seven years ago today, April 12, 1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States died in Warm Springs, Georgia; as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.  At age 39 Roosevelt contracted polio, and for the following twenty four years lived with its aftermath, which put him in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life.  Yet FDR did not surrender to his disability, instead he embraced it, rehabilitated himself, and successfully served during the four years he was Governor of New York, and a record setting 12 years, 1 month, 8 days, as President, being elected to four terms in The White House.  The physical limitations and the dependence on a wheelchair President Roosevelt endured, did not impair his intellectual, political, governing, or master communications skill, to be then, and continue to be considered now, one of the great American Presidents.  Therefore, I know my health challenges and physical limitations, do not preclude me from continuing and carrying out the priestly, pastoral, parish, ministries I was ordained to provide in the Diocese of Sacramento.  Now as I learn to walk with my new prosthetic leg, I have been told that being in a wheelchair is a problem and makes me unsuitable for parish ministry.  That is an erroneous and false argument, as I have successfully and productively  celebrated Masses and Sacraments and presided over the ministries of preaching the Gospel  and teaching the Catholic Christian Faith, during four periods in a wheelchair over the past ten years.  Like President Roosevelt, Father Powers has no intention of allowing physical disability vanquish the ability to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of his calling.  Thus, as we commemorate the legacy of FDR, disabled persons and all persons committed to our calling in this life, can derive inspiration from the effectiveness of the man in a wheelchair he was for sixteen years in governing New York State and then, the United States of America............Fr.  Troy