New Jersey Catholic church lambasted for denying autistic boy his First Communion

A New Jersey Catholic church has received backlash after they allegedly denied an eight-year-old boy First Communion because he’s autistic and his disability leaves him ‘unable to determine right from wrong’.

The Saint Aloysius Parish in Jackson Township told the parents of Anthony LaCugna, who is non-verbal, Tuesday that their son could not participate in the religious milestone because of his disability, the boy’s father said.

They’ve since singled out the Rev. John Bambrick as the church official who made the controversial decision.

‘I just want my son to be treated like everybody else,’ his mother Nicole LaCugna told ABC 7.

Antony LaCugna (pictured) was told he couldn’t participate in First Communion because he’s autistic, and cannot differentiate between right and wrong, his parents said

Jimmy LaCugna (left) and Nicole LaCugna (right) said they are disheartened by the priest’s decision, calling it discrimination against Anthony

‘Regardless if it’s through church, through school, society. He needs the same rights that we all have’.

Jimmy LaCugna, Anthony’s father, expressed his disappointment about the church’s ‘disgraceful and disheartening’ actions in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.

He wrote: ‘Father Bambrick at Saint Aloysis Church in Jackson and the Archdiocese of Trenton came to this position since Anthony is unable to determine right from wrong due to his disability they feel he is not up to the “benchmark required to make his communion.

‘This is very hard and upsetting to comprehend when we all are created by God and now our son is being shunned from the Catholic faith due to his inability to communicate.

‘Father Bambric (sic) of Saint Aloysis Church and the Archdiocese of Trenton should be ashamed of themselves.’

Jimmy LaCugna shared a Facebook post about the incident on Tuesday and it has since gone viral

Nicole told NJ.com: ‘God created everybody. He created my son the way he is for a reason’.

‘[Communion] is supposed to be a blessed day, not a day of not thinking my son doesn’t belong. This is discrimination against my child’.

Nicole said that both sides of the LaCugna family have been raised Catholic and continuing the faith through Anthony is important to them.

Nicole: ‘[Communion] is supposed to be a blessed day, not a day of not thinking my son doesn’t belong. This is discrimination against my child’

The family started the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine process, or religious education classes, two years ago for Anthony at their home in preparation.

Nicole said church leaders agreed to the schooling and Anthony planned on receiving First Communion in April.

The Rev. John Bambrick (pictured) reportedly made the decision without meeting the family or Anthony

‘I’ve been very transparent with the church about Anthony from the beginning. I knew my son wouldn’t be able to sit still,’ she said.

They’re not sure how Bambrick came to the decision to exclude Anthony, since he’s never contacted them directly or even met their son.

‘We’ve never had any communication with him, never, not once. He doesn’t even know my son,’ Nicole said.

Saint Aloysius Parish has since responded on Facebook with a statement that said ‘new information has come to light’ allowing them to reconsider the move.

They wrote: ‘Since Monday we have been researching how we could best assist the most profoundly disabled in a better way.

‘New information has come to light which allows us to by-pass previous Diocesan Guidelines to better serve this subset population’.

The parish further clarified that a new protocol mandates that children in these situations be considered to have a ‘inner spiritual’ relationship with God.

‘The basic concept is the child should be presumed to have an inner spiritual relationship with God and this would be sufficient in these particular cases, thus this is a development of our guidelines based on the latest understanding’.

Saint Aloysius Parish in New Jersey released a statement on Facebook saying ‘new information has come to light’ that allows them to bypass previous guidelines

Although the statement said the LaCugna family has been contacted about the shift in policy, Jimmy said the statement doesn’t make any promises regarding their son.

Jimmy said: ‘It doesn’t say Anthony can do his communion this year. It doesn’t say they will work with us’.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, religious entities are exempt from public accommodations under Title III.

‘Religious entities are completely exempt from Title III of the ADA. All of their facilities, programs, and activities, whether they are religious or secular in nature, are exempt,’ the website said.

Although Saint Aloysius Parish and other religious institutions are not required by law to accommodate special needs people, many people on social media found the action reprehensible.

Saint Aloysius Parish (pictured) and other religious institutions are not required to adhere to ADA regulations

‘This is just absolutely not What Jesus Would Do. It’s disgraceful and the Priests should be ashamed of themselves and seek the Lord for forgiveness,’ one person wrote on Facebook.

Another said: ‘This child is special and made by God. He deserves to make his communion. Go to another priest’.

One woman commented that incidents like this are among reasons that people are leaving the Catholic Church.

‘I am so sorry. He is a child of God and innocent. No wonder people are leaving the church. This is only one example,’ she said.

According to the Pew Research Center in 2018, the Catholic Church has faced a decline in membership over recent decades.

They report that Catholicism ‘has experienced a greater net loss due to religious switching’ than any other religion in the U.S.

Thirteen percent of all U.S. adults are former Catholics and, in contrast, only two percent of this cohort has converted to Catholicism.

‘This means that there are 6.5 former Catholics in the U.S. for every convert to the faith. No other religious group analyzed in the 2014 Religious Landscape Study has experienced anything close to this ratio of losses to gains via religious switching,’ they wrote.

Additionally, the percentage of Catholic baptisms in the U.S. has dropped from 35 percent in 1965 to 18 percent in 2014.

The number of former Catholics rose to 25 million in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reports.

This is not the fist time the church has faced public backlash over its policies and procedures.

In 2017, a 13-year-old boy claimed he was kicked out of CCD classes because he was openly gay. The church denied the allegations.

Other parishes have made headlines for refusing communion over the years.

In early February, a Rhode Island Catholic priest sparked outrage for saying ‘pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone, abortion does’ after banning 44 politicians from receiving communion because they’re pro choice.

Presidential hopeful Joe Biden was denied Holy Communion during a 9am mass in South Carolina because the priest said he advocated for abortion.

Joe Biden was reportedly denied Holy Communion in a South Carolina church because of his stance on abortion

Father Robert E. Morey, the priest who refused Biden, said he would pray for him.

Cady Mansell of St. John, Indiana, was barred from attending her First Communion because she wore a white suit instead of a dress.

The nine-year-old’s mother took to Facebook and said the suit made her daughter feel ‘beautiful’.

Cady’s father said when he took her to a practice for First Communion, a pastor told him that they were raising the young girl ‘wrong’.

An in a similar 2012 case, an eight-year-old boy with Down Syndrome was banned from participating in First Communion.

Catholicism in the United States

There are around 70 million Catholics in the U.S. and 1.2 billion worldwide, but reports show that there has been a decline in the religions population.

13 percent of all U.S. adults are former Catholics and, in contrast, only two percent of this cohort has converted to Catholicism.

‘One-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009,’ they wrote in October 2019.’

In the same vein, current Catholics want to see the global church make significant changes in due time.

This includes allowing priests to marry and introducing women as priests.

‘And nearly half of U.S. Catholics say the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples.’

‘Support for these kinds of changes is lower – though still substantial – among Catholics who attend Mass regularly than it is among those who attend Mass less often.’

Even so, Catholicism in the U.S. is seen as racially and ethnically diverse.

‘Roughly six-in-ten Catholic adults are white, one-third are Latino, and smaller shares identify as black, Asian American, or with other racial and ethnic groups.’

Data shows the number of Latino Catholics in the country are growing and are likely to continue increasing.

Moreover, there are as many Hispanics as whites among Catholic Millennials.

Catholics are also fairly evenly dispersed across the U.S., but the growth of the countries Hispanic population is causing a shift from the North and Midwest to the South and West.

‘Overall, the share of U.S. Catholic adults who reside in the Northeast and the Midwest declined by 5 percentage points between 2007 and 2014 (from 53% to 48%), while the share of Catholics who live in the South and West grew by an equal amount (from 47% to 52%).’

Source: Pew Research Center

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