There is a popular priest who is saying horrendous things about autism and autistics, so I wrote about him.
I’m surprised I need to say that autism is not due to parental sin. However, a Catholic priest from India has started preaching about this publicly and I think some people might be confused. I’m going to quote a bit of Fr. Valanmanal, then show that both Church teaching and science say parental sin does not cause autism. […]
I will deal with the causes of autism below, but this text has several other issues. First, intellectual disability and autism are two separate diagnoses. Autism and intellectual disability have high comorbidity but many of us have average or above-average IQ. For example, I, an autistic, am working on a doctorate. Likewise, I presume by hyperactivity, he is speaking of ADHD, which is not predictive of low intelligence in studies. Second, being autistic is not “an animal-like life.” I live a life much like most other humans, I struggle with some things such as reading people socially, but that is far from being “animal-like.”
