autism

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Are congregations ready to help carry the unique spiritual burden of autism?

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Are congregations ready to help carry the unique spiritual burden of autism?

Many modern churches may be weak when it comes to architecture and sacred art, but they almost always have concert-level lighting, sound and multi-media technology.

But in a few sanctuaries linked to ancient traditions, worship leaders are trying something different. In some Eucharistic services, they are offering autistic worshippers an atmosphere that is more calm and less intense.

"If you look at many church services from the point of view of highly sensitive people -- especially autistic children -- there is too much noise, too many lights," said Father Matthew Schneider, known to online Catholics as @AutisticPriest. "We can turn down the lights. We can turn down the volume. We can do a few things to accept these families and let them feel more comfortable."

For neurodivergent people, it actually helps that ancient rites are built on repeated gestures, prayers and music that become familiar. Schneider experienced this phenomenon in seminary, but grasped its importance when he was diagnosed as autistic several years after his ordination.

"If you do something over and over, then I know what's coming. I have time to take that in. I know what is happening and why," said Schneider, who currently teaches theology at Belmont Abbey College near Charlotte, North Carolina.

"If you throw me a curve ball, it may take me some time to get over the shock. That's just a reality for autistic people. ... If I'm familiar with a service -- stand up, kneel down, look right, look left -- that can become comfortable."

Religious leaders will have to face these issues after seeing waves of stunning statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups studying neurodiversity trends. For example, in 2000, 1 in 150 children were somewhere on the autism spectrum. That number was 1 in 36, in recent CDC data. And 26.7% of autistic children now display "profound" symptoms.


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Podcast: Searing Free Press commentary on autism haunted by true religion ghosts

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Podcast: Searing Free Press commentary on autism haunted by true religion ghosts

If you look up the term “mash-up” in an online dictionary, you will find lots of definitions — including various mass-media riffs. For example: “a movie or video having characters or situations from other sources.” Or maybe: “a Web service or application that integrates data and functionalities from various online sources.”

This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) is a kind of GetReligion mash-up.

Let me explain. As a rule, this website focuses on critiques — positive, negative and in between — of mainstream coverage of religion news or other hard-news stories that are “haunted” by religion “ghosts” that journalists either missed, ignored or messed up.

However, we also run various kinds of “think pieces” drawn from the work of political scientist Ryan Burge and a variety of other news sources that address trends that affect news coverage. And religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling writes Memos in which he looks ahead at newsy religion events and trends.

This week’s podcast focused on a painful, blunt, first-person essay that ran at the important news and commentary website known as The Free Press. It was written by a non-journalist — National Council on Severe Autism President Jill Escher — and the double-decker headline proclaimed:

The Autism Surge: Lies, Conspiracies, and My Own Kids

Rates of autism are skyrocketing. The question isn’t just why — but what we need to do about it right now, and what’s holding us back.

This commentary wasn’t “news,” but it contained waves of information that news-consumers would want to see. This wasn’t a feature that directly addressed religious issues or themes, but I was struck by how many questions it raised that are already affecting religious believers and institutions.

The bottom line: America’s mental-health crisis will inevitably crash into religious congregations, schools, medical institutions, etc. The decisions that these religious groups make, or refuse to make, will create important news stories for religion-beat journalists.

The podcast, and this post, are a kind of tmatt Memo about the stories that are ahead. I wrote this, in part, because I have already seen the importance of this topic in the lives of many people that I know and love in religious congregations that I know well.


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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

Was the attack on the elementary school at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church a religion-news story?

Of course it was, for at least four reasons that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

(1) It was an attack on a conservative Christian school at a conservative Presbyterian church in a city that is often called the buckle fn the Bible Belt (although locals know that the Nashville establishment, especially in media, is left of center).

(2) Religious groups have played a major role in Tennessee debates about parental rights, education and LGBTQ issues. What does that have to do with the shooting? Hold that thought.

(3) Religious groups have played a major role in discussions of gun-control legislation in Tennessee and, in this case, it is important to avoid political labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” in that discussion.

(4) The young adult who attacked the Covenant School was a former student there. Audrey Hale had recently identified as Aiden Hale in social media, with male pronouns. Hale was still living in a conservative Christian home, with a mother who both was a strong advocate of gun control and on the staff of Village Chapel in Nashville.

What else do news readers know about the shooter? That depends — in this new age of partisan, advocacy media — on which news organizations a reader follows. In most mainstream coverage, even in Nashville, questions about the life and beliefs of the shooter have all but vanished.

Consider this short paragraph late, late in a Religion News Service follow-up report: “Grief, fear haunt Nashville as residents gather to mourn in wake of Covenant shooting.”

Very little is known about the shooter, a former student at Covenant who was killed by police. The shooter reportedly left a manifesto that has not been made public. 

Really? “Very” little?


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Autism and the mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is not 'home food'

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Autism and the mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is not 'home food'

Ever since the Last Supper, Catholics have pondered what happens during the Mass when they believe the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

"Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering … it has always been the conviction of the Church … that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood," proclaimed the Council of Trent, after the Protestant Reformation.

"This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist."

Believers approach this mystery with the greatest care and respect. This may be hard for children to grasp as they prepare for First Communion.

Now imagine trying to teach this core Catholic doctrine to persons -- young and old -- who have mental and physical disabilities that make it hard, or impossible, for them to acknowledge what is happening in the Mass.

"Because we believe Holy Communion is the Body and Blood or our Lord, we want to be very careful about this," said Father Matthew Schneider, who is known to his Twitter followers as @AutisticPriest.

"This isn't a theology test. No one needs a theology degree to take Holy Communion. We simply need to make sure that they know this is an act in a church rite -- that they are not eating ordinary food like at home. We're trying to find out if they have a basic understanding of what's happening."

Under Catholic canon law, children can be given Holy Communion "if they can distinguish the body of Christ from ordinary food and receive communion reverently."


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New podcast: Autism and Holy Communion -- Like it or not, doctrine is part of this story

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This was the rare week in which my national “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate grew directly out of a recent GetReligion post, the one with this headline: “Autism and Communion: Textbook social-media clash between parents, press and church.” The syndicated column then provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

That’s a lot of material to take in. Why did I think that this issue was worthy of all that attention?

Basically, it was a four-step process and I have to admit that I had a personal reason for taking this on.

(1) Let’s start with the USA Today story, which ran with this headline: “Boy with autism denied First Communion at Catholic church: 'That is discrimination,' mom says.”

That story offered a classic news-coverage clash between “discrimination” language that is so popular with journalists and the efforts of church leaders to, perhaps imperfectly, minister to people with special needs while also honoring 2,000 years of Catholic doctrine about Holy Communion.

(2) Doctrine vs. discrimination? What could go wrong? This USA Today piece was a classic example of a larger issue that your GetReligionistas have encountered over and over during the past 17 years.

Simply stated, journalists (especially reporters without religion-beat experience) have a tendency to frame religion news in images and language drawn from political conflicts. Who needs to dig into the details of Catholic tradition and canon law — including statements about Holy Communion and people with autism — when you can write a headline that shouts “Discrimination!”

Once again, there’s that doctrine found in way too many newsrooms: The world of politics is real. Faith and doctrine? Not so much.


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Autism and Communion: Textbook social-media clash between parents, press and church

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Every now and then I get an email from a GetReligion reader who has, for all practical purposes, researched and written a perfect news-critique post for this blog.

It’s especially interesting when the email comes from someone who — in a perfect world — would make an ideal source for mainstream coverage of the very issue that he or she is concerned about.

So that’s what happened the other day when I received a note from Father Matthew Schneider, who writes at a blog called Through Catholic Lenses. He is also known, on Twitter, as @AutisticPriest — a fact that is relevant, in this case.

That is, the fact that Father Schneider is autistic is relevant because he has a natural concern for people facing autism and related challenges, which has led him to dig into church law and teachings on that topic.

This matters when facing a USA Today headline such as this one: “Boy with autism denied First Communion at Catholic church: 'That is discrimination,' mom says.”

What we have here is a perfect, 5-star example of a clash between parents — backed with press reports — and church officials who seem to think they have lots of time (In the social-media age? #DUH!) to figure out faithful responses to complex liturgical issues. It also helps, of course, when reporters fail to use search engines and plug into logical sources about Catholic teachings and even Canon Law.

Anyway, here is the overture to this story, which is long, but essential:

MANALAPAN, N.J. — Nicole and Jimmy LaCugna both grew up with a strong Catholic faith. Each attended religious education as children, married in a Catholic church and sent their first son, Nicholas, through a faith-based pre-K program.

So when their second son, 8-year-old Anthony, reached second grade last fall, he was on track to receive his first Holy Communion in April.

But just days ago, the couple learned Anthony would not be allowed to receive the sacrament at St. Aloysius in Jackson, New Jersey, the church the family has attended for years.


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Think about this: How many religious flocks are ready for children with 'hidden' disabilities?

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On one level, this week’s think piece is not about religion. Then again, it is a personal and transparent piece from The Seattle Times — written by GetReligion contributor Julia Duin, a veteran religion-beat professional.

It’s a piece about what it’s like to travel with one or more children with “hidden disabilities.” She is talking about PTSD, autism, anxiety disorders and other intense conditions that, to be blunt, may not immediately be obvious to people at nearby restaurant tables, in lines at theater parks or jammed into adjacent airplane seats.

OK, what about people of various ages who are settled in for peace and quiet, or even transcendence, in a nearby pew during Mass?

So read Duin’s article and picture that in your mind. Look for the situations that religious leaders of all kind need to stop and think about, in terms of their own communities, activities and facilities. Think about that as you read this:

You’ve seen them at the airport, at the beach or in a restaurant. A child is thrashing or kicking or on the ground while a desperate parent hovers nearby, trying to ignore angry glances from passersby. I know because I’ve been that anguished parent.

On display are “cognitive disabilities,” invisible handicaps related to how children’s brains work. For many kids with cognitive disabilities or developmental disorders, a car can be a prison, a plane or a new hotel room can be sheer terror.

In the past, families were stuck, barely venturing outside the county, certainly not on an overnight trip. Travel meant potential trauma minefields, and unfortunately, we live in a world where bystanders are more apt to call the police or Child Protective Services than offer help to the parents.

Can you see the potential for any of that in, oh, a loud suburban megachurch?


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