Demons and Saints

In Spain, a priest denied a girl the ability to participate in a common religious ceremony, first communion, which deals with the cleansing of sins. The reason? Because the priest considered the girl incapable of sin since she has Down Syndrome.

I have a funny little item in my "blog ideas" file that just keeps growing which is a dictionary of autism and/or disability stereotypes, all of which come in pairs: the super crip and the poster child, the do-gooder and the blamer, etc. I realize now I had forgotten to add the demon and the saint.

It would certainly not be "nice" but at least "less terrible" if this incident in Spain was unusual or isolated. Unfortunately the sanctification--or conversely demonization--of people with disabilities for no reason other than because they have a disability is a bit more global. In the U.S. there have been accounts of autistic individuals being abused during exorcisms. And the view that people with intellectual or developmental disabilities are "closer to god" or "more saintly the more disabled they are" has come up more times on message boards I've been on than one might think. These attitudes are dangerous in both directions because autistic people and people with disabilities are just that--people. Some are nasty. Some are wonderful. We are not supernatural. To think otherwise is dehumanizing.

According to the article from Spain, the situation is being rectified and the girl has been allowed to participate in the ceremony. However it illustrates 1) discrimination exists in religious contexts as well as in secular ones, 2) inappropriate sanctification is a harmful disability stereotype that can lead to discrimination.