In 1990, Pope St. John Paul II recognized the crisis in priestly vocations and the need for improved formation of men capable of responding to cultural challenges brought on “by the deep and rapid transformations in the societies and culture of our age.” To address the issue, he convened a synod of bishops to address the “Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day,” and in 1992, he presented a post-synodal apostolic exhortation titled Pastores Dabo Vobis, or “I Will Give You Shepherds.” In it he introduced a new area to be addressed in seminary formation he called “human formation.” The goal was to develop priests who were affectively mature and better prepared to serve their flocks as a cultural and spiritual bridge to an encounter with Christ rather than an obstacle burdened by unresolved cultural baggage.
This year, Notre Dame’s McGrath Center for Church Life published a set of twelve proposals they suggest for assessing the suitability of men for the priesthood. Their recommendations were drawn from a study they had commissioned in 2024 from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University on how dioceses and seminaries assess seminarians’ suitability for ordination. The McGrath Center fortified the CARA study through conversations with seminary rectors, psychologists, and others involved in forming men to assume spiritual leadership in the Church through Holy Orders. The CARA study and those conversations are distilled into these twelve proposals.
The McGrath Center divides the twelve proposals into three sections. The recommendations lean heavily into contemporary issues that impact their suitability to serve as priests, including their psychological health (Section One) and chastity (Section Three). What especially caught my eye, however, was Section Two, which encourages exploring the possibility of admitting men into formation who may be autistic, have ADHD, OCD, or other “significant formative deficits,” as the document calls them. This is a very new and welcome addition to the conversation on who is eligible to study and be formed as priests to offer themselves in a life of service to Christ and his Church.
The topic of admitting persons with disabilities to Holy Orders challenges the current paradigm of who the ideal candidate for the priesthood might be. As I read this report, I was reminded of a book review I published in Evangelization and Culture Online in October 2024. The book was written by Dr. Amy Richards and called Disability in Classical Education. In it, she presented this curious phrase, “strange vocations” to suggest the unique place that persons with disabilities might occupy in schools. I believe that term, when properly understood, may be both clarifying and challenging to the Church as it considers what roles persons with disabilities might successfully fill in the Church of the future.
The topic of admitting persons with disabilities to Holy Orders challenges the current paradigm of who the ideal candidate for the priesthood might be.
Dr. Richards drew her phrase “strange vocations” from St. Augustine (miris vocationibus in Latin and found in Book 1, chapter 22, section 32 of this treatise) and interprets it in the context of how he explains disability in City of God (Book 16, chapter 8). She then adds what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, that it is “through the exchange with others, [and] mutual service and dialogue with his brethren, [that] man develops his potential; [and] thus responds to his vocation” (No. 1879). St. Augustine provides the logic of why a person with a disability might be a hidden gift to the Church rather than a problem to solve. He refuses to see what he termed “monstrous births”—persons with physical or intellectual “defects”—as a divine failure and instead sees them contributing to the beauty of the whole, a beauty that perhaps only God can perceive. This “strangeness” is woven into the fabric of life by our divine Creator to challenge our “cult of normalcy” and cause us to look deeper into acknowledging the extent to which we are all vulnerable.
This view of disability—as revelatory of our mutual vulnerability—is echoed by the International Theological Commission’s recent document, Quo Vadis Humanitas, which encourages theological reflection on disability to come to terms with two universals in all human experience: vulnerability and dependence (see my reflections on paragraph 118 of this document here).
Dr. Michael Waddell, the Edna and George McMahon Aquinas Chair in Philosophy at Saint Mary’s College and founder of their Autism Studies program, is indirectly helpful in bringing these voices together on the topic of disability and vocation in the Church. Dr. Waddell’s understanding of autistic identity is that it is uniquely relational as is seen in the way that autistic persons bond with one another to form profoundly meaningful relationships. Their self-understanding, or identity, is formed in community with other autistic persons. I encourage you to listen to Dr. Waddell’s excellent lecture on this topic, while keeping in mind the Catechism’s comments that vocational discernment is found in exchange with others.
The increased prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been widely covered over the last few years in the media, and its cause is hotly contested. The CDC’s latest statistic (2022) for the incidence of autism in the US is about 1 in 31 (or 3.2 percent) of children who are eight years old. In the mid-1990s, the reported incidence was only about 1 in 500, but older statistics were drawn from different diagnostic criteria and are only minimally helpful in understanding the rate of increase. However, it is reasonable to state that, at least under the current diagnostic criteria, the incidence of autism is in fact increasing in the US and therefore in the Church as well. Added to the pediatric numbers, adult diagnosis of ASD increased in the decade from 2011 to 2022 by 175 percent. The same source reports that autism in young adults between 26 and 34 increased during the same period by 450 percent!
We can be certain that the population statistics represent the number of Catholics with autism, and we can assume that the number will continue to grow, creating a substantial need in the Church for priests who are comfortable and capable of ministering to a population that self-identifies through their relationships with one another. And what better ministers could there be to this population, and to all Catholics, than autistic men who through proper formation and care are perfectly capable of carrying out priestly ministry in the Church.
The McGrath Center report acknowledges the challenges autism presents, such as reduced empathy, difficulty with social cues, emotional rigidity, and others; but they continue to report that “It is important to acknowledge that these traits can appear in any given candidate, and not just those on the ASD spectrum” (Recommendation 7). Just like all candidates for the priesthood, these men would need to be successful in their formation and to be able to respond well to “specialized mentoring and psychotherapy to help them develop the relational capacities necessary for ministry.” Presumably, those who apply 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. Of course, they would also need to otherwise prove themselves suitable for Holy Orders. The McGrath Center has formed a task force to investigate the subject more fully.
So, it may seem strange to see a recommendation that autistic men be accepted into seminaries to become priests. But it would be stranger to resist investigating the possibility, leaving willing men who wish to serve on the sidelines. And yes, that growing number of autistic Catholics would be most grateful too.