TAIPEI (UCAN) – Contracting polio as a missioner inspired American Jesuit Father Robert J. Ronald to dedicate himself to help others in Taiwan overcome the limitations of that and another disabling disease.

Taipei-based Operation De-Handicap, which he founded in 1973, remains as a living legacy following his death at age 76 on Jan. 2. The funeral Mass was held on Jan. 10 at Jesuit-run Tien Educational Center in Taipei. His body was buried that evening at Chingshan Jesuit Residence in Changhua county, 145 kilometers southwest of Taipei.

Father Ronald, who contracted polio in Taiwan in 1958, a year after arriving as a seminarian to study Chinese, established Operation De-Handicap to empower youths with polio and muscular dystrophy to assume ultimate responsibility for their own rehabilitation. It also stresses the role of the family in this process.

Besides psychological and vocational counseling, it provides referral services for those who need medical equipment and social-welfare assistance. The center also organizes educational programs and recreational activities to help counselees build solidarity among themselves.

Father Ronald was born in the United States on Oct. 1, 1932, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1950. Polio, relatively common in Taiwan when it struck him eight years later, left him dependent on a wheelchair from that time.

This physical setback, however, did not stop him from serving the people of Taiwan. An obituary from Jesuit-run Kuangchi Program Service, which produces Catholic multimedia programs, quotes him as having once said: “I am healthy. More healthy than before polio even, just limited in local motion, that’s all.”

Father Ronald was ordained a priest in 1965 and returned to the United States three years later to work on a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling. When he returned to Taiwan in 1971, he served as a consultant at Veteran’s Hospital in Taipei, a position he held until he retired in 2002.

People said they were often amazed at the “joyful disposition” of the priest, who often claimed that the “two greatest gifts he had received from God were his polio affliction and his car accident,” according to the obituary. Father Ronald suffered major injuries in that accident, which occurred in 1974. A year later, infection set in and doctors had to amputate his left leg.

Undaunted, he continued his work and was able to visit foundations and benefactors to support his organization through lecturing and fund-raising activities that included a 21,000-kilometer van trip across the United States.

The missioner also produced manuals for people working with disabled people and their families, taught classes and workshops, and gave presentations at international conferences on rehabilitation throughout the world.

Ignatius Huang, director of Operation De-Handicap, who worked with the founder for 30 years, told UCA News on Jan. 13 that Father Ronald kept to himself but was always concerned about the needs of others.

The obituary also cites the priest’s care provider of the last seven years recalling how his own life changed through Father Ronald’s “kindness and patient companionship, always reaffirming and encouraging, never scolding, criticizing or complaining.”

Over the years, Father Ronald became recognized as an authority on rehabilitation in Taiwan. The prestigious Medical Contribution Award that the government’s Department of Health presented him in 2003 was one of many honors he received.

Although he seldom had the occasion to explicitly speak about God or the Church in his work, the obituary says he was well aware of the apostolic dimensions of his work. It quotes Father Ronald as having said, “My identity as a priest and as a Jesuit is nearly universally known and my motives respected.”

After his retirement, Father Ronald volunteered to edit English scripts for Kuangchi. In his final years, he became a prolific writer of editorials, poems and fables for the Jesuit Chinese monthly Renlai (flute of humankind), which publishes articles on social, cultural and spiritual issues for readers of all religions.