Project Adam's Pew

There are some situations in which the involvement of the legal system can only mean that something has gone terribly wrong on the level of fundamental human relations.  A paradigm of such a situation has to be the dispute leading to the Church of St. Joseph in Bertha, MN, obtaining a restraining order against a parish family, barring them from bringing their autistic 13-year-old son to Mass.   We can pray that the mediation scheduled to start this week will resolve this in a way that is consonant with our understanding of the Church as a gathering of the people of God.  (See, e.g., Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion:  Understanding the Church Today  (Ignatius Press 1996), at 29:  ". . . the Eucharist, seen as the permanent origin and center of the Church, joins all of the 'many', who are now made a people, to the one Lord and to his one and only body.")

The mother who was barred from her church has set up a web-site to encourage people to reserve pews in their local churches for families who might need a positive indication from their churches that they are welcome, even if their loved ones sometimes engage in unconventional behavior.  Her project is called "Project Adam's Pew."  As I have mentioned before, I think the lack of welcome often felt by parents of kids with disabilities with respect to the community life of Catholic parishes is a real problem, and I am glad that this unfortunate episode might at least be raising awareness of the problem.