It’s a safe guess that everyone reading this post will have seen, in one form or another, requests to pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, religious and consecrated life. Rare is the Diocese with an abundance of priests, or the monastery overflowing with novices, anywhere in the world.

How is it, then, that a decent number of neurodivergent people feeling called to vocations are being turned away?  Worse still, how is it that many of these individuals are being welcomed and encouraged right up until the very moment they drop the “a” word (i.e., “autistic”), and then are stonewalled by a change of tone? Suddenly, the interest drops, the cordiality evaporates, and a businesslike manner takes hold: “We’re sorry, but after further consideration, we don’t think you will be a good fit.”

Excuse me?

If we can set aside the intense pain of such rejection without warning, what is it, objectively speaking, which makes an autistic person unfit for priesthood, diaconate, or religious life?

It’s an important question, considering that this is what we are hearing, again and again, especially from religious orders: autistic people need not apply.

In the absence of any obvious impediments, this rationale is tantamount to selective abortion. The same gravely flawed formula which pushes parents to end the lives of unborn children for the sake of avoiding anticipated hardships due to disability is being applied on a regular basis toward autistic people in the Church who feel genuinely called to religious life, and who respond with sincere intention.

Pray for vocations… but, only from among the fittest?

With apologies to Matthew 25, Our Lord is answering the prayer for vocations in great abundance, but He is being rejected by the very people sounding the call. He arrives in unmasked truth: vulnerable, humble, and open-handed. Rather than embracing Him at the door, we are yielding to the warnings of fearmongering experts, willingly allowing specters of pathology to eclipse the answered prayer before us. Calculating the risks, we turn Him away.

Aborting vocations. One after another.

How much longer, O Lord? How many autistic vocations are snuffed out by directors who refuse to trust that God knows what He is about when He chooses the people He chooses to work in His vineyard?

Pray for vocations? Not until we first pray for vocations directors, and for all the vocations obstructed by those who are threatened by vulnerability.