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    Church Hits Autistic Boy With Restraining Order:  You’re Too Disruptive

    Carol blames Adam’s worst behavior, revving a church member’s running car after mass, on a lack of accommodation from the church.

    “They don’t understand how the mechanisms of autism are working at the moment of these disruptions and so forth,” Carol Race said. “And I want to point out that in the last couple of months Adam has been perfectly well-behaved. So that’s what’s shocking to me.”

    You can read more here...

    YOUR INPUT:  Boy, this is a tough one… how would/could you resolve this one?

    A catholic church in Minnesota has filed a temporary restraining order against a 13 year old autistic boy, saying that they needed to, because of a "growing concern for the saftey of parishoners. According to KARE11.com, Adam is severely autistic and has attended St. Joseph's his whole life.

    "Adam Race is more than six feet tall and weighs more than 235 pounds. In court documents, Fr. Walz said Adam's growing size makes it harder for his parents to manage his behavior during mass.

    Fr. Walz said Adam struck a child, bolts unexpectedly from church nearly knocking people down, including elderly people. He said Adam also spits and urinates during church.

    Adam's mother, Carol, said those allegations are either exaggerated or false. She said Adam is not angry or violent. She said he has never spit in church, and that on rare occasions, he has been incontinent."

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    1. Big Chris on Wed, May 21, 2008

      It should also be noted that this is in rural Minnesota, a small town church with limited resources.  I don’t have the answer to that because I don’t know the layout of their facility.  In our church we could have them sit in the balcony and that would limit his interaction with other people to only those in the balcony.  In my previous church, a large church, they had a great big cry/play-room that would be perfect for him, where you can see the service, participate in the service, but are walled/windowed off from the sanctuary to limit movement and noise - and by big I mean 40+ people can worship in this space, and it has a great view of stage and excellent speakers for sound.  I don’t think this small rural church has the resources to create such a thing, nor do they necessarily want to modify their sanctuary in this way.


      Big Chris


      http://mrclm.blogspot.com

    2. Peter Hamm on Wed, May 21, 2008

      We have a screen in our “gathering area” and speakers, so we’d ask them to sit with him out there.


      Problem with this situation, though, is that the Catholic Church believes if you miss Mass on Sunday you are in mortal sin. So how do they keep this individual from being in that serious state if he’s not allowed, by injunction, to attend?


      Very difficult quandrey for them, isn’t it.

    3. Melody on Wed, May 21, 2008

      Very sad situation.  We faced a similar one over an elderly member, in fact the emeritis pastor of that very church, who had taken to speaking during the sermon, was incontinent, and so forth.   Sunday morning church was his wife’s sole social opportunity.  After a heated elders’ meeting, it was decided to let love for this man of God prevail and those who were overly distracted by him choose another service to attend.


      But this one is different because of the potential of injury to other worshippers.  My oldest daughter once took some special training in order that she could accompany an autistic child to children’s worship, AWANA, and so forth and permit his parents time to worship.  I wonder if perhaps an adult could be found to do something similar for this young man.

    4. Bart on Wed, May 21, 2008

      If you watch the video clips on the link you find that the church offered to have the boy watch the service on a TV monitor from another room, but the parents refused.  The parents also refused to mediate unless the option of not being in the service was taken off the table.  Looks like a losing situation no matter what angle you view it from.

    5. Tonya on Sat, May 24, 2008

      Honestly, this whole thing infuriates me on many levels. I have a great amount of experience with and empathy for individuals with disabilities. My older brother has a form of mental retardation called Angelman Syndrome and I was the primary teacher/caregiver for a 10 year old autistic boy for over a year. The child that I took care of was not violent in the least, but sometimes had stimulatory behaviors that are usually referred to as “stims.” His particular stims were usually jumping, flapping his hands, and making joyful squeals. During church, he would sit most of the time, but there were moments when he would either be experiencing an overly stimulating experience or was excited by the gathering. He would jump, squeal and flap his hands. Once in awhile, he may have accidently grazed a person sitting in front of or behind him. Was it intentional? Never! You know what the other parishoners did, they praised God for the gift of the child’s presence. His innocence seemed to helped God’s light to pour straight from his soul. These church members have an opinion that I fully agree with that individuals with these “disabilities” are God’s blessings on earth to show us of HIs eternal love, joy, and patience.


      Now, what right do these individualsof the Minnesota church have to try to tell the family and the child that they aren’t allowed to sit in the sanctuary to experience worship? What would God or Jesus want in this sitauation? It is outright discrimination and should be illegal, let alone completely against any moral code that should be held by the church. If there are members who are disturbed by the child’s expressions, perhaps it is THOSE people that should find another room to sit in to view the worship services. Or perhaps, they should actually dig a little deeper into the Bible that they are carrying with them on Sundays to discover precisely how Jesus would treat this child.


      The ignorance and pettiness of this world infuriates me at times. Maybe the reason that boy was placed in that congregation was so that the members would learn vital lessons about love and acceptance and stepping outside of their own confined worlds. Perhaps, just perhaps, God is trying to reach into their services to help them realize He is still a real and living God and that He wants them to reach out to His children on this earth that need their love. But of course, that might require tolerating things that are a little noisy, or a little out of the comfort zone. We couldn’t have that, now could we?

    6. Ethan on Tue, May 27, 2008

      I was initially shocked when I read this news on CNN.  Something seemed to be missing in the story. 


      FWIW, I subscribe to this pastor’s blog in Seattle and he wrote about this story and it has brought out some interesting comments including the mother of this young man and several of the parishioners.  Very interesting and to be honest, very sad.


      http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/autistic-boy-banned-from-church/

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