by Father Mark P. Nolette

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.

 Luke 1:1-4 (NRSV Catholic translation)

Recent days have seen a strong interest among the autistic Catholic cybersphere on the topic of autistic men and the Catholic priesthood. This interest has been sparked by a reference to autism in a report published by the McGrath Institute for Church Life earlier this year called Do You Know Them to be Worthy? This led to an article in the National Catholic Register called Autism and the Priesthood: How the Church is Responding.This was soon followed by an article on the Word on Fire website by Mark Bradford called ’Strange Vocations’: A New and Welcomed Conversation About Priestly Eligibility.

The initial reaction to each of these in the autistic Catholic cybersphere was largely negative, with some notable exceptions. What was more interesting was how some of the negative commentators soon “repented” of their critiques and pronounced these articles “very good” after all. Evening came, and morning followed… the eighth day. What is actually going on here? How should we – not only autistic Catholics, but all Catholics – understand these articles? It is worth noting that neither article, in referencing the McGrath report, looked at the autism issue in the context of the report itself. What was the report about? Why was autism mentioned there in the first place? How does this understanding color how we see the two subsequent articles?

With these concerns in mind, I have endeavored (like St. Luke) to “investigating everything carefully from the very first”, in order that you, my dear readers, may come to know more fully the truth concerning all these things.  I shall look at the McGrath Report, the Register article and the Word on Fire article and then draw a few general conclusions from all of this.  I do this in the form of an essay or blog post, not as a scholarly thesis or a book (though one could easily write either about this). Some citations may make their way into this post, but rest assured that I can support every contention I make here.

• The McGrath Report

The McGrath Institute for Church Life, associated with the University of Notre Dame, released a report called Do You Know Them To Be Worthy? Twelve Proposals For Bishops, Rectors, Seminary Formation Teams and Mental Health Professionals in Assessing the Suitability of Men for Holy Orders earlier this year. The twelve proposals are divided among three sections: (1) proposals aimed at a more effective use of psychological services in the formation process, (2) proposed best practices regarding candidates with special needs, and (3) proposals aimed at supporting chastity and celibacy formation. The report ends with a few general conclusions.  One proposal mentions autism, Proposal 7 in Section 2.

To understand what the McGrath Report has to say, we need to see it in its context. Its preface makes it very clear: this report has arisen from the need to offer something to help the Church address the clergy sexual abuse crisis. It does not arise from a placid, objective overview of the whole picture. It is a response to a crisis. A second, related purpose in the preface is to offer bishops a means of resisting the temptation to admit poor candidates for ordination merely because of the need for greater numbers of priests. The focus of this report is clearly on psychology. It offers no proposals on assessing the moral or spiritual readiness of candidates for the priesthood unless we choose to reduce these to their psychological components. The idea is to do what is possible to keep sexual predators out of the priesthood, while offering suggestions for the best use of psychological tools for seminary formation. The scope of this report is limited because of these factors. The report says little about the variety of psychological schools/approaches to be found in our country, or how some of these approaches are at variance with Catholic anthropology. Psychology is not monolithic. How does a seminary choose a Catholic psychology?

It is in this context that the McGrath Report chooses to address the topic of autistic seminarians in Proposal 7. What should we make of this as autistic Catholics? Are the authors of the McGrath Report implying that autistic men have a tendency toward being sexual predators? Or, are we considering autistic seminarians in the light of the need for more priests which is leading dioceses to look in unlikely places, such as autistic men? I think of the movie Glory, which brings us back to a time in the Civil War where the need for more soldiers led the Union Army to allow free blacks and ex-slaves to form a regiment, something that the Army would not have done without the felt need. Should we as autistic people find this reassuring?  Or should we note that autistic people have been finding their way into the priesthood and religious life for a very long time?

In this context, it is not surprising to note that autistic men are described only in terms of perceived psychological deficits: “reduced empathy, difficulty with social cues, cognitive and emotional rigidity, and impairments in executive functioning among others”. Considering that recent studies have seriously called into question the assumptions about empathy and rigidity given here (at least), seeing such statements repeated in a report of 2026 is like seeing a computer manual in 2026 telling us how to use our 640k of RAM!  On the other hand, the Report then makes this statement: “Here it is important to acknowledge that these traits can appear in any given candidate, not just those on the ASD spectrum.” (emphasis theirs) If I had my way, that line would be engraved into the formation process of every seminary and religious community.  Autistic people have been more often victims of rigidity and lack of empathy than the source of either.

One example of this is a statistic in this report stating that 57% of bishops in a recent survey said they would be concerned about welcoming a “high-functioning” autistic man as a seminarian, and 20% would not accept such a man as a candidate for Holy Orders. A thought experiment: change “high-functioning autistic man” to “black man” or “Latino man” and see how that goes over.  It’s quite encouraging to note that one out of five bishops think that I should never have been a priest.

We might conclude this section by asking whether speaking of autistic seminarians under the title of “Do You Judge Them To Be Worthy?” and not speaking of, say, narcissistic seminarians, places autistic seminarians in too harsh a light?

• The National Catholic Register Article

On August 20, the National Catholic Register published an article by Matthew McDonald called Autism and the Priesthood: How The Church is Responding. The McGrath Report is cited in this article as one of its inspirations, along with the increase of autism diagnoses in recent decades. One of the strengths of this article is that McDonald interviewed three autistic priests (including myself) and quoted them in the article. It is still rare to see things written about autistic people in the Church that actually consult autistic people. This is true even though that it makes as much sense as a Catholic writing an article about Buddhists without consulting any Buddhists beforehand.

Now, since this is a fairly short newspaper article, we can’t expect a great deal of depth. The article touches on a number of important points. However, some things stand out as in need of further comment. The other autistic priests (besides myself) who were interviewed for the article stated that they did not believe that they could do well in parish ministry. Was this because of their autism, or simply because they are in religious orders that do not necessarily have the charism of parish ministry?

Then there’s the elephant in this room – the way the article begins. We read of a deacon in a seminary who is described as an “expert in treating autism” who notices that an autistic seminarian genuflects “like a toy soldier” and sees a problem here, though the seminarian does not. Rather than recommend that the seminarian be asked to leave, we are told, the deacon works with the seminarian so that the seminarian’s genuflections become fluid so that this evidence of his autism becomes invisible. This episode shows an astonishing lack of empathy toward the autistic seminarian. Many autistic Catholics reacted very strongly to this episode online. Moreover, I am a canonist. I know of no rule that states that a seminarian who genuflects awkwardly is unqualified for Holy Orders. Why is autism portrayed as such an embarrassment that its effects must be hidden? Why is the possibility that someone, somewhere might find that seminarian’s autism “upsetting” more important than the autistic seminarian’s health or holiness? Why is the focus here on behaviorist solutions when behaviorism aligns poorly with Catholic anthropology? At the very least, this shows how far we still are in actually seeing autistic people as real people.  We wouldn’t treat others on this way; only some of the “disabled”. Who really are the disabled? Who is really lacking in empathy?

• The Word on Fire Article

On August 31, an article called ‘Strange Vocations’: A New and Welcomed Conversation about Priestly Eligibility, written by Mark Bradford, was posted on the Word on Fire website. Mark Bradford was appointed as Word on Fire’s Fellow for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in 2023. I note this because this position covers a great deal of territory. Mark Bradford is well-intentioned, but one cannot escape the sense when one reads his articles that he is learning on the job.

One example of this can be seen as he begins this article. He speaks of St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis as introducing a “new” area to be addressed in seminary formation: human formation. Having been in seminary in the 1980’s and knowing many priests ordained then (and before), I can safely say that “human formation” existed in seminaries even then!

Bradford goes on to summarize the McGrath Report. This article seeks to continue the conversation that the Report started. Bradford gives a decent summary of the Report but does not note the context (the clergy sexual abuse crisis) that gave rise to the Report. He notes the Report’s language in referring to autism, ADHD and other conditions as “significant formative deficits”. The language of “deficits” is not immediately questioned, but then Bradford does an interesting thing. He makes reference to a book by Dr. Amy Richards called Disability in Classical Education, a term Dr. Richards uses (strange vocations) and some of St Augustine’s writings on what we would today call disabilities. What Bradford is trying to do is to move the discussion from psychology and deficits to theology and giftedness. His description of disability as revelatory of our mutual vulnerability is not new for those of us who are charter members of Disability, Inc., but we’d like to see more reflections along this line in Catholic publications. Bradford uses the term “cult of normalcy”, which actually comes from the writings of Thomas Reynolds. I’d love to see him explore that in more detail.

However, as an autistic person, I have some issues with Bradford’s article. He cites Dr. Michael Waddell’s work on autistic identity. Dr. Waddell is not autistic.  Would you have an agnostic writing on Catholic identity? Am I saying that only an autistic person can write about autistic people? By no means! Nevertheless, I am calling out the attitude lurking behind such things all too often. Let me illustrate. Leon Van Ommen, who wrote Autism and Worship, tells us in his preface that he is not autistic. However, he has done his best to listen to autistic people and is open to correction if he gets anything wrong. Dr. Waddell’s background is philosophy. He has no training in autistic things. Nor is he autistic. He, like other non-autistic “experts”, come across as saying, “We know. You autistic people don’t know, so shut up and listen to us.”  I see no intellectual humility here. Therefore, I see no wisdom.  That is a serious problem.

Then, there is this statement from Mark Bradford: “Presumably, those who apply (he means autistic men who seek to be seminarians) would understand the challenges they would face as autistics and be willing to assume the possible burden of masking some behaviors in order to serve in a pastoral role”. I’m sorry, but it is irresponsible to toss out such a statement without some careful explanation and reasoning behind it. Masking, as such, has been clinically shown to be harmful to autistic people in the long run. Granted that not all behaviors belong everywhere. But this must be handled carefully, by people with real empathy and love who actually get it. The potential for abuse, considering how vulnerable autistic people are, is very high. Incidentally, has anyone asked whether an extrovert should mask his outgoing personality so as not to offend an introvert? No? Why is that, pray tell? Why are autistic people held to a standard that is not applied to anyone else?

• Concluding Thoughts

With Mark Bradford, I can see some encouraging signs that there is more open discussion about autistic men and a priestly vocation in Catholic circles than there has been. However, in fairness I must note that some of our Protestant brethren have been discussing similar issues in their own denominations for decades. One can point to the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen as one example. However, we must also realize that a similar discussion is just as needed about autistic people and a vocation to religious life, or the permanent diaconate, or (dare I say) marriage.

Moreover, the focus in many of these discussions remains to an excessive degree on the psychological deficits of autistic people which may negatively impact their ability to serve as priests or religious. Such a focus is misguided. The ideal or perfect candidate does not exist and has never existed. Moreover, though we tend to view the individual priest in isolation, official statements such as Presbyterorum Ordinis (Vatican II) see the priest as a member of a presbyterate that serves the diocese or religious community as a presbyterate, regardless of the individual ministries of each priest (PO 3). The model here is clearly the Church as the Body of Christ, where each member has a place, no member can say that they don’t need the others, and where those whom the world sees as “weak” are given higher honor.

Another unaddressed issue is how many proposed therapies for autistic people (adults as well as children) remain rooted in the behaviorist approaches first championed by Dr. Lovaas in the 1960’s and which remain common in schools even today. If one wishes to see a contemporary assessment of the failure of such practices, check out this article from the Denver Post.

Most importantly, little or no consideration is given to those qualities that autistic men bring to the priesthood precisely because they are autistic. Let this quote from Presbyterorum Ordinis 3 illustrate the point: “(Priests) are to live as good shepherds that know their sheep, and they are to seek to lead those who are not of this sheepfold that they, too, may hear the voice of Christ, so that there might be one fold and one shepherd. To achieve this aim, certain virtues, which in human affairs are deservedly esteemed, contribute a great deal: such as goodness of heart, sincerity, strength and constancy of mind, zealous pursuit of justice, affability and others”. With the possible exception of affability (depending on how you define that), every one of these virtues has been recognized in the literature as a common virtue of autistic people. Again, I see no place where awkward movements or stimming are listed as impediments to Holy Orders.

Finally, there is the Church’s bottom line. If these autistic men are truly called to the priesthood, who has called them? Do we not still believe that the Church is the Lord’s and that He it is Who builds it? Doesn’t the Lord know who He is calling? Do we need to second-guess Him or find some rationale to get rid of inconvenient people? Autistic people can at times be inconvenient. We see through “spin” very often and recognize that the Emperor has no clothes, and for our efforts we are labelled as “rude”. We speak for justice and truth and are accused of “black and white thinking”. Yet, we see that our accusers are more “black-and-white” when it comes to us than we have ever been. We see that people have already made up their minds about us before we say a word, but we are supposedly the rigid ones. If the Lord has chosen to call people like us to the priesthood and religious life, He has His reasons. Who would dare to argue with Him? Yet some do, indirectly. Could it be a sign that Church leadership is at risk of becoming “disabled” in its attitudes and that one way to reach them is to send the Church “disabled” priests who know well that their effectiveness comes from the Lord and not from their own ability? Do we really trust psychology more than grace?