I have to say that I find the title very insulting. I bet there is not a church anywhere that excludes any children. The article takes a statistic, children with certain conditions are twice as likely not to attend any sort of religious service, and conclude it is the Church that is excluding them. Talk about a major error of equating correlation with causation! Isn’t it far more likely that such children are not taken to any sort of service because it is more burdensome on the parents for enough of the children to account for this statistical anomaly?
I applaud those parents who persevere in bringing their children to Mass, and we have several, and those priests and parishioners that make them welcome, or at least tolerate the necessary distraction with understanding. I know that my priest has no problem with them, even if occasionally he has to talk to one during Mass. He is always loving and leaves them smiling. Most importantly, by doing this (maybe a couple of times a year) he teaches us by example to understand their needs.
