I can talk all I want about my experience of autism in the Church or how I can apply this from autistic books to Catholicism. However, as they say, “If you’ve met one autistic, you’ve met one autistic.” Other autistic people’s experience will inevitably be different from mine. To get a wider perspective of various autistics, it is good to have studies. They are able to interview a wider selection. Today, I talk about one study recently done by a... Read more
Recently, a hospital in Catholic Canada was forced to start doing euthanasia assessments. They will perform the euthanasia itself next door. I have visited this hospital once back in the 90s. My great aunt was a sister in the community that used to run the hospital and in her retirement still worked as the sacristan of the hospital chapel. I published a piece in the National Catholic Register about this: Back in 1996, the government promised my great aunt and... Read more
I’m currently writing a doctoral thesis in moral theology on the topic of privacy. A question arose in the Democratic primaries around whether police should be allowed to use facial recognition software. Vox wrote an interesting piece on this software, focusing on how this software can have embedded biases. I am more concerned about privacy and thus concerned about its use by both private companies or the government. The Current Debate over Facial Recognition Software Vox reported on this: In... Read more
When we autistics pray, we can go deep. However, autistic prayer is slightly different from neurotypical prayer. I recently recorded a short video on going deep in prayer as an autistic. We can have certain difficulties early in prayer with the theory of mind regarding God. However, once we get beyond that, I think our way of thinking can help us go deep. This is a follow up to my video on Autistic Memory and Prayer from a few weeks ago.... Read more
This week, Australian scientists made an interesting discovery in treating a tough medical condition. The hormone oxytocin has helped people who have trouble matching their body and their brain’s image of their body. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is when people believe that part of their body is malformed or misshaped. This is distinct from Gender Dysphoria which gets a lot more media. In more severe cases, [edit: formally called body integrity dysphoria] these people feel so strongly that part of them... Read more
We autistics tend to have a really amazing memory. I have said before that friends would joke that Wikipedia would check with me first. Obviously, that’s not true. However, it does point to the autistic tendency to a very exhaustive, almost photographic memory. I asked myself how this relates to prayer. I decided to record a short video with my ideas. Here is my take on autistic memory and prayer. I think we autistics can pray just like anyone else.... Read more
Part of the diagnostic criteria for autism is sensory irregularities. This can be hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity. In autistic discussions online, I see a lot of discussion about hypersensitivity but I hope I can add something regarding hyposensitivity or where we are less sensitive to sensory input. This is less spiritual and religious than most of what I post but I think something valuable to add to autistic discussion. We have to understand the challenges posed by hyposensitivity. This is one common,... Read more
This week, news came out of Seattle of Robert Fuller who died via assisted suicide. Two reports about how his parish dealt with it also emerged. I will quote both reports. His story raises questions about how we as a Church should help people intent on assisted suicide or euthanasia. After the news stories, I will explain Church teaching. Robert Fuller’s Story At first, the report from AP via the Detroit News seems pretty normal now this is legal. The day... Read more
Pope Francis greeted an autistic girl from Naples at his Wednesday audience this week. It took me a bit to see the video but I want to include the video, the article, and some commentary. The Pope with an Autistic Girl The Catholic Register (from Canada) carried the story. During the Aug. 21 gathering in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, Clelia Manfellotti, a 10-year-old girl from Naples diagnosed with autism, walked up the steps to where the... Read more
Before I spoke about if autistic children should receive first Communion. They should, in case you missed that post. One family in New Jersey, the Rizzos, went even further and developed a program to help with autistic kids seeking first Communion. Several months back, I was at a conference and they gave me a copy of the Adaptive First Eucharist Preparation Kit from Loyola Press. I decided to do a little unboxing of it, unscripted. Here’s the result. The kit... Read more
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