Autistic banned from Mass

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I was watching CNN a few days ago, and I found some news that I thought might interest you:

A severely autistic 13-year old and his mom were banned from attending mass at their local church in Minnesota. The church's reason why they did what they did was that the boy was "disruptive and dangerous." Why? He fights, urinates, and almost knocked over children and elderly people. So they filed a restraining order against the boy and his mom so that none of those things would happen again.

So what do you think of that?

There's another thread similar to this.

But anyway, most religions, including Catholicism,
treat autism like its the devil.

Nice try. I know you'd love for that to be true. Most Catholics treat the devil like the devil.

theyre both about the same boy.


agreed.
its more to do with the ignorance of individuals than just because theyre catholic,religeon doesnt tell someone to be nasty unless its changed to suit extremists.

I think it was okay of them to do. Urinating in places instead of in the bathroom is unsanitary so it's not okay, the fact he is a danger to other people because the fact he was nearly knocking down kids and elderlies, not okay. And fighting also not okay. I'm assuming they mean psychical fight. Everyone has every right to be safe at their own church. No one should be given the special privilege to act that way because of their autism or any other condition they have. But I don't see why they had to ban the mother too instead of the boy only.

If he's acting like that in church, maybe he doesn't want to be there?

Then his family shouldn't even be taking him there. A church had to do a restraining order to keep him away just because the parents wouldn't stop taking him there.

While I don't think that he should have been banned, it probably wasn't doing him much good anyway.

There are other ways to get close to your religion.

1. Catholicism has always made very clear distinctions between demonic influence and mental illness, although there are usually overlaps (mental illness leads to mistreatment by society, which creates a spiritual weakness). This has nothing to do with that.

2. The priest has supposedly made all sorts of overtures to help. I don't know what those were, but, given my experience with priests, most of them are horrible about dealing with disabled parishioners.

3. If he's having these outbursts at Mass, he's obviously uncomfortable there for some reason, and his parents should stop bringing him. My suggestion is that they should try a parish or a mass time with a small congregation and no music, or maybe a Traditional Latin Mass, where there's a lot less sensory stimulus to overwhelm him.

Latin Masses sare pretty rarely said these days. Maybe they should try 19th century Spain.

You know your kids are mucking up too much in church when the priest throws holy water on them while saying "the power of Christ compels you...."

I think I saw this on Fark. Didn't click on it because it didn't interest me.

I agree, the mother is partly to blame, but the church at least, should care, wouldn't they? I mean, it is suppose to get people closed to God and show God's love, right? at least they could look for any alternatives, so instead of going to that church, bringing the church to home or something like that, I think. But I suppose it wouldn't be so convenient for them (church)?

Last edited by greenblue on 23 May 2008, 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

haha

I used to say them rather frequently, mostly because I enjoy them. They're becoming more common lately, from what I understand, and it is possible to find one in many larger diocese.

They're a pretty neat experience from a sensory perspective, provided they're not low masses.

It's unfair to the other people to keep a monster like that at the church. If a person can't control their behaviors and they harm others or disrupt public functions then they have absolutely no business being with other people. Purposely urinating in public is repulsive and disgusting. The boy shouldn't be taken out of his home if he is that bad. And quite blaming nasty behavior as being an autistic problem because he obviously has more wrong with him them autism to act like that.