The fact that there were deaf people in the distant past is evident from the fact that the causes of deafness, such as diseases, were as common then as they are now. By the Christian era, their condition was miserable. They were considered by many to be cursed by heaven; they were called monsters and even punished by death once their deafness was satisfactorily established. Lucretius expresses the accepted view that they could not be educated:
To educate the deaf, no art will ever attain,
No care will improve them, and no wisdom will teach them.
Greek and Roman poets and philosophers classified them as defective, and the Justinian Code limited their civil rights. In the family, they were considered a disgrace or looked upon as a useless burden and kept in isolation. This is a bright page of the New Testament, which tells of the kindness of our Divine Lord, who, while doing good to all, did not forget the deaf and dumb. Following His example, the Church extended its charity to this suffering class and paved the way for them to open other channels of thinking instead of the ability to hear. The statement found in the literature related to deaf education that the true history of deaf education should be seen as dating from the Reformation is an old post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The fact is that many of the most famous educators of the deaf received their first lessons from those who predated the Reformation or were not influenced by its errors, but took up the teaching of the deaf and dumb for the sole purpose of imparting religious instruction. No Catholic theologian has ever claimed that adults who are deaf and dumb from birth are beyond salvation because “faith comes by hearing” (Rom. x, 17). It is often claimed, without citation, that St. Augustine held this view. While the great physician may have held the opinion of his time that the deaf could not be educated, he certainly did not exclude them from the possibility of salvation in the same way that he excluded pagans to whom the Gospel had not yet been preached.
It must be recognized that even in our own time the deaf are severely handicapped in terms of religious instruction, so necessary for the preservation of faith and morals. Many deaf and mute people born to Catholic parents have lost their faith due to the lack of Catholic educational institutions. Furthermore, they are deprived of the usual Sunday instruction and homilies. In the United States, there are few priests engaged in ministry for their spiritual well-being, and those who have taken up this apostolate do not have the free time to devote all their energy to this work. Protestant clergy, on the other hand, travel the length and breadth of the country and on their monthly routes gather deaf people for religious services. There can be no doubt that from the dawn of Christianity the deaf have been the subject of the sympathy and zeal of many priests and missionaries, who, by various ingenious devices suited to the occasion, have taught them the basic truths of the faith: but history has left scanty records of their good work.
St. Francis of Sales, having met a deaf and mute man during his missionary travels, took him into his service and managed to establish communication with him in sign language, prepared him for confession and Holy Communion. The famous Jesuit naturalist and physician Lana Terzi (1631-1687) in his work “Prodromo dell’ Arte Maestra” discusses the education of the deaf, which, according to him, consists in the fact that they “first learn to perceive the human tendencies.” The organs of speech in the formation of sounds and then imitating them, recognizing the speech of others by reading lips. To do this, they must first pronounce each sound separately, read it on the lips of another, then combine them into words; they must be taught the meaning of these words by showing them the objects indicated, and gradually become acquainted with the meaning of those relating to the functions of the senses, art, understanding, and will” (Arnold). Lorenza Hervas y Panduro (1735-1809), a famous Spanish philologist and missionary to America, was actively interested in the education of the deaf in Rome and published a scientific work in two volumes entitled Escuela Española de Sordo-mudos, o Arte Para Enseñarles a Escribir y Hablar el Idioma Español (Madrid, 1795). The book consists of five parts, “the first being devoted to the deaf in the political, physical, philosophical, and theological aspects of the subject and the linguistic questions it raises; the second is a history of their education up to that time, which is the first complete written account; the third explains the practical method of teaching idiomatic language in writing; the fourth, the teaching of speech; and the fifth, the teaching of metaphysical ideas and moral and religious knowledge to the deaf” (Arnold).