So far, a few dioceses have had programs to help Autistics to live a full Catholic life. Autism Consecrated has done a great job of encouraging autistics in their own prayer life. But, so far, there has been a lack of initiatives promoting fellowship and full autistic participation in the Church on a wider scale. A few months ago, John Smith noticed this and thought about creating an initiative to fill this niche. He named this initiative Autistic Catholics. He asked me first to be on the board, then he asked me to think about being president of the board. Today, we had the first board meeting and I was elected president by all the other members of the board. There are a variety of people who are autistic or work in autistic ministries on the board. John is the executive director and a non-voting board member.
Autistic Catholics has large goals but will start realistically. The first initiative is a weekly Zoom meeting for fellowship starting October 2. The mission is larger including developing resources to help Catholics with information both on integrating and on autistic advocating in the Church, and integrating us into the Church on all levels in both participation and ministry. But, I think it is good to start small and work up to those.
Please join us a 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific on October 2 for our first Weekly Wednesday, or find out more on the (so far sparse) Autistic Catholics website. I hope this can be the start of something great.
