This Saturday, Pope Francis will make history: He will meet with autistic children and their families to raise awareness about the condition and help end the stigma. The visit will cap a week-long international conference on autism hosted by the Vatican’s health care office, reports ABC News, which is bringing together more than 650 people from 57 countries.
Even with the significant attention paid to autism in the United States, where an approximate 1 in every 68 kids is on the spectrum, there continues to be stigma. It is far worse in other countries—including in Italy, noted Dr. Stefano Vicari, head of pediatric neuropsychiatry at the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome. In some countries, children with autism and other special needs are hidden away by their families out of shame. In Bangladesh, for instance, there is a common false belief that autism and other mental disorders are caused by ill spirits.
During the visit, the Pope will deliver a speech to hundreds in the Vatican audience hall, complete with music and movement for the children. The attention this visit receives should hopefully send a worldwide message—to people of every religion—that kids and adults with autism deserve acceptance and respect.
If I were at this conference, I’d have one request for Pope Francis: To publicly encourage places of worship to welcome children with autism and other special needs. As I know from my own experience, and from that of other parents I’ve met through social media, places of worship of all denominations are not always accommodating to kids with special needs. One survey found that a third of caregivers of kids with special needs say their church does not have a Sunday school program for their children. Per another statistic, an estimated 9.6 million caregivers of kids with special needs have no services to send them to. Some places of worship aren’t even open to including kids with special needs. As I’ve said before, you’d think that churches, temples and mosques would feel compelled to answer to a higher authority when it comes to spiritual accessibility.
Just a few words from Pope Francis could make a difference in how places of worship welcome kids with special needs. And that would surely answer a lot of special needs parents’ prayers.
From my other blog:
Good Night Moon: Special Needs Edition
A cool way to describe kids with special needs
Raising kids with special needs: Why it’s good I didn’t know then what I do now
Image of Pope Francis kissing child via Shutterstock