Autism, MAHA, and the Face of God

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/autism-maha-and-the-face-of-god

*snip*

Some years ago, there was an autistic woman who went to my parish. She was nonverbal, but she would be at the 10:00am Mass every Sunday with her mother. She sat not in the main sanctuary but in a pretty chapel in the back, where she could watch Mass from a comfortable chair through large glass doors. I imagine they chose to sit there because she would continually stim and they felt self-conscious about the movements and sounds.

I liked to sit in the chapel with this woman and her mother at Mass; just a small act of fellowship so that they wouldn’t feel othered.

The priest in charge of the parish got transferred, as they often do. The new pastor was a MAGA priest. He did not like having this woman at Mass.

First he directed that the chapel be closed during Mass, in an attempt to discourage this woman and her mother from sitting there. When these two women continued to go to the chapel on Sunday mornings during Mass, the priest assigned an usher to physically blockade the chapel and prevent them from entering it.

The mother asked the priest if he might reconsider letting them sit in the chapel. His compromise was to put a single, hard wooden bench in the church vestibule, which was hot in the summer and cold during the winter.

This woman and her mother stopped attending Mass at their church. I left the parish shortly after.

*snip*