Autistic Catholics find community during St. Francis pilgrimage

Christian Martinez drove from Flemington, New Jersey, to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12 for an afternoon with other autistic Catholics.

The 33-year-old, a member of St. Magdalen de Pazzi Parish in Flemington, had spoken with his parish priest about something he had been looking for.

“I’m autistic. I’m looking for a community where I can talk to other autistic Catholics,” Martinez recalled telling him.

That search brought him to the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America for the Jubilee of Saint Francis Pilgrimage for ADW Autistic Catholics, a sensory-friendly gathering organized by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Deaf and Disabilities Ministry.

The pilgrimage brought autistic Catholics, their families and friends together to pray, walk through the monastery gardens and learn about St. Francis of Assisi during the year marking the 800th anniversary of his death.

Organizers planned the afternoon with sensory needs in mind. The monastery gardens offered quiet spaces and places to sit, while the program avoided unexpected amplified sounds and flashing media. American Sign Language interpretation was also available.

Martinez paused before describing how he feels in his parish community.

“Wow, that is a tough question,” he said.

“Honestly, I feel like … I still feel like a stranger in a strange land.”

Martinez said welcoming Catholics with autism or other disabilities does not necessarily require creating an elaborate program.

“Simply just talk to” a Catholic with a disability, he said. “Have a conversation with them.”

He suggested greeting people when they come to Mass, sitting with them and spending enough time together for a relationship to develop.

“It feels like, ‘Oh, this person wants to talk to me,’” Martinez said. “Or to be like a good friend or a neighbor. And that’s a really simple thing to do. It’s not complicated.”

In the monastery gardens that afternoon, Conventual Franciscan Father Jacob-Matthew Smith invited the pilgrims to consider something growing around them.

“You look at that bouquet of flowers. How many of those petals are perfect?” he asked.

“None of them.”

Father Smith asked the group to notice the differences among the petals and consider the way people sometimes look at their own shortcomings.

“We look at our own lives and we think about all of the shortcomings that we have,” he said. “But yet together, it’s like all of these flowers being grouped together to make something beautiful.”

Looking at the group gathered around him, he added, “And that’s what this group is doing, making something beautiful.”

Father Smith came to the Franciscan Monastery in 2000 after a path to religious life that began years earlier.

He left the Marine Corps in 1989 and later spent about six years working in a hospital. Then, as he described it, “spiritual things began to happen.”

Friends encouraged him to visit the Holy Land, and eventually he went.

“I fell in love with the place and the Franciscans,” Father Smith said. “There’s something about landing in the places where Jesus grew up, and where he taught, and where he died. It just does something to you.”

At the monastery, he encouraged the pilgrims to take time with the gardens and the religious sites spread throughout the grounds.

“See the beauty, even in something that may not be perfect,” Father Smith told them, “and then start to look at yourself in that way, the beauty of what God has created.”

That afternoon, the pilgrims gathered for Mass in a small classroom at the monastery, where several participants served at the altar. Some already served in their home parishes, while Father Smith showed others how to assist before Mass began.

Martinez said he prefers identity-first language.

“I want to say ‘autistic people,’” he said, explaining that he and other autistic people he knows prefer to identify themselves that way.

Person-first language is not wrong, he said.

“It’s who we are.”

Martinez works as a commercial roofer in New Jersey, a trade he learned through a roofing union. He said working on rooftops required some adjustment, particularly to the heat, but heights have never bothered him. One of the tallest buildings he remembers working on was seven stories high, at the headquarters of pharmaceutical company Merck in Rahway, New Jersey.

Outside work, he enjoys hiking, bicycling, soccer and video games.

Martinez volunteered that he probably would not take a hypothetical pill that could make him no longer autistic.

“This is what God made me,” he said. “And if it’s part of, you know, God’s plan that my brain should be wired this way, then so be it.”

The afternoon also included a talk given by longtime autism advocate Jenn Lynn, who asked the pilgrims to consider St. Francis’s encounter with a person with leprosy.

“Who is my leper?” she asked, encouraging them to think about people they may be inclined to judge or avoid.

Drawing on the life of St. Francis, Lynn spoke about friendship, acceptance and the importance of considering another person’s perspective before judging. She also distinguished between respecting someone and approving of everything that person may do.

On forgiveness, Lynn told the group, “Forgiveness equals freedom,” while noting that forgiveness can coexist with boundaries.

She also reflected on St. Francis’ experience of illness and suffering and the joy that remained part of his spirituality.

“My life isn’t perfect,” she said. “I got hard stuff. But if you can stay in joy, those two things can exist at the same time.”

Lynn closed with the Franciscan greeting, “May the Lord give you peace.”

“That’s such a beautiful sentiment,” she said. “And if you truly wish it to someone, that’s God’s work.”

For Tom and Marilou Yeatman, questions about autism have changed over the years as their son, James Garcia, has grown from a child needing educational support into an adult building a life of his own.

Garcia, now 34, was more than 5 years old when he was diagnosed with autism, his parents said. Before that, they had been told he had pervasive developmental disorder.

The Yeatmans recalled navigating the special education system at a time when autism was less widely understood than it is today.

They learned, sometimes through difficult experience, how much advocacy mattered.

Eventually, Garcia attended a private school where tuition was paid by the county. His parents said the school focused not only on education but also on preparing students for adulthood and employment.

Through the school, Garcia participated in internships, including one at the National Institutes of Health. Today he works in the mailroom there.

As Garcia moved into adulthood, the questions facing his family changed. The Yeatmans said they are now considering issues involving greater independence, finances and planning for his future.

Their years navigating the school system also shaped the advice they offer other parents.

Marilou Yeatman recalled learning that even the language parents use while advocating for services can matter.

Rather than asking what was “best” for their son, she said, they were advised to ask what was “appropriate” for him.

That distinction became important as the family worked through evaluations, educational meetings and decisions about the services Garcia would receive.

Martinez, meanwhile, pointed to the Gospel account of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well when explaining how Catholics can begin making people feel welcome.

Jesus just talked to the Samaritan woman, Martinez said, adding that Jesus said to her, “‘Give me a drink.’”