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This is a difficult issue, and I find it hard to criticize the priest leading the church, and I sympathize with the family. However, I find it odd that nowhere in the story does the priest or anyone else from the church offer supportive words. Also, I find it interesting that the Catholic Church teaches that people go to hell for not attending church. Is that so, and from where does that statute come?

On a farm in central Minnesota, you’ll find a family devoted to each other and to God, but because one of the children has autism — the family has been told they cannot go to mass.

Carol Race’s 13-year-old son, Adam, has autism. In his case, the disorder sometimes causes loud outbursts and violent behavior. Church leaders in Bertha, Minn. say it’s so bad that they had to get a restraining order to ban the Race’s from mass.

It’s a move the church calls a last resort.

Race said she cares for Adam night and day, and she takes him to church every Sunday.

However, last Sunday at Saint Joseph Church was different. She got a ticket for going to mass on Mother’s Day.

“It’s a citation. They want me to appear in court on Monday morning,” she said, as she showed the ticket.

“That’s what really shocks me — that this would come at this time,” she remarks, because she says her son has been making progress in mass, by standing up, kneeling, and holding hands with his family.

However, the parish priest recalls, quote, “repeated disruptions in church,” he says, the last three years, so he took out a restraining order to keep Adam and his family out.

“Nobody should be subjected to this behavior, but guess what this is reality. Autism is a reality,” Race said.

Father Daniel Walz consulted a parish lawyer first, before deciding to file for a restraining order on May 9.

In the petition, he wrote that Adam has “struck a child” in mass. He “spits,” and he has “urinated” in Church.

“It takes up to three adults to restrain him,” and sometimes his behavior is so disruptive, his parents “bind his feet and his hands.”

The Parish priest also wrote that “Adam’s continued presence on parish grounds not only endangers the parishioners, it is disruptive to the devout celebration of the Eucharist.”

Church leaders said they’ve exhausted all efforts to find a solution to this.

They’ve suggested the family go to a different mass or sit somewhere else during mass, and they even suggested getting a mediator involved.

The family admits that they do have to restrain Adam sometimes, because he gets overwhelmed in mass, but they insist, no one else is in danger.

“My husband, my self — we’d protect anyone with our life before we’d let our son hurt anyone,” Race said.

The restraining order is valid for two years, but it’s not going to stop the Race family from going to church.

“We are obligated to go to every Sunday mass and every Holy Day of Obligation, and the Church teaches that it’s a sin not to go to Church,” she said.

(Source, which also has video)

OK, I will modify my earlier statements a bit because of this bit of information: “They’ve suggested the family go to a different mass or sit somewhere else during mass, and they even suggested getting a mediator involved.”

I wonder, though, what would going to a different mass solve? …Are there no other parishioners at this suggested service? And if the problem can be solved or eased by the family sitting somewhere else…why on earth won’t the mother accept that? — The church doesn’t want them to sit, like, in another room do they? …Which I guess wouldn’t be so bad. I attend a church that has so many visitors/attendees sometimes that folks have to attend service in another building and watch via television and whatnot. I’ve never been because I prefer to be in the main house of worship…which may be the mother’s issue in this case. But who knows for sure, since the article doesn’t fully explain all this.

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