Guest blog post by Deacon Mark Paine of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, UK
Deacon Mark Paine, who himself is autistic, is developing a Catholic theological understanding of neurodivergence. In this post, he reflects upon autism and how it reflects the Image and Likeness of God.
I have been reflecting on the Imago Dei—that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
It is a phrase we use often.
In sermons.
In teaching.
In conversation.
And rightly so.
But I am not sure we have fully reckoned with what it means when we speak of autism.
Because there remains, even now, an assumption—sometimes quiet, sometimes more visible—that autism is something separate from the person.
Something additional.
Something regrettable.
Something to be accommodated, if not overcome.
But that is not how autism is lived.
It is not at the edges.
It is woven through the whole of a person’s life.
Through how the world is encountered.
Through how others are understood.
Through how God is sought.
And that matters.
Because if we are to speak truthfully as the Church, we cannot say that autistic people bear the image of God apart from their autism.
We must say, more plainly, that they bear the image of God as they are.
Anything less begins to divide the person.
And that is not a Christian way of seeing.
The diaconal calling is, at its heart, a ministry of attention.
To notice.
To stand alongside.
To serve at the place where Christ is already present, often unrecognised.
And it seems to me that this is precisely where autism meets the Church.
Not as a problem to be solved.
But as a presence to be recognised.
Because there is, within autistic experience, a particular kind of attentiveness.
A concern for truth.
A resistance to pretence.
A willingness—sometimes costly—to remain with what is real rather than what is merely expected.
That does not always sit comfortably within our patterns of church life.
But discomfort is not the same as absence.
So perhaps the question is a simpler one than we sometimes make it.
Not whether autistic people can be included.
But whether we are prepared to see what is already there.
And that may take time.
It may take a willingness to look again at things we have taken for granted.
It may mean recognising that what appears unfamiliar is not therefore lacking.
But if the Imago Dei is truly present—
then it is already there to be seen.
And perhaps, quietly,
to be received.
For more reflections by Deacon Mark, visit his blog, Marcus Diaconus
