Over the past year, 3 different communities invited me to give presentations on autism and consecrated life. I presented to all three on autism in religious or consecrated life. The three had very different charisms – cloistered contemplative, semi-contemplative non-religious, and apostolic religious – and yet all gave good reviews.
I think this is an important topic as there are autistics within the Church’s religious life, but communities don’t always know the best ways to help us live this life to the full. This post is an invitation for any community that wants a conference or wants to talk about a discerner or member in formation to reach out to my contact form. I want to help as many communities as I can, so many autistics with vocations can live a full consecrated life in the Church.
All the presentations I’ve done have had specific questions that should not be posted online. I might later post a more general version of this presentation apart from any specific community. For now, I want to post a short summary of this presentation below. This way, you know what I present before you invite me.
Summary of Autism in Consecrated Life Presentation
I have followed the same basic outline all 4 times, with most adaptations for the specific community in part 4.
- Medical Definition: explaining the DSM-5 definition.
- Interior Experience of Autism: how we experience the world differently, and our brains are structured differently.
- Affecting our Consecrated Lives: Autistics living in community & living consecrated to God.
- Living Consecrated Life with Autism: Tips for the consecrated autistic and the rest of the community so they can live consecrated life fully.
The first 2 are pretty standard explanations of autism: I have presented similar material to Catholic school boards. The latter 2 are things I am currently trying to develop, but are still rather speculative in application.
I enjoy the questions and discussions as well, as they show that the members of the community want to help all live their vocations fully.
Please Contact Me
As noted above, I want to help communities with this topic. I think it can be important to help some people follow their vocation. The easiest is to use the contact form on this website: as that goes straight to me at the moment. There are precious few resources on this important topic.
