Priest Who Slapped Crying Baby During His Baptism Forced To Retire

A French Catholic priest spoke on Friday of his shame after being forced into an instant retirement for beating a two-year-old boy for crying during his baptism.



Father Jacques Lacroix, 89, said: "I am finishing my ministry now" and that "there is an end to everything".

He carried out the strange assault during a ceremony at the Collegiate Church in Champeaux, near Melun, in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, last Sunday, reports Daily Mail.

In a video of the incident that has gone viral, a father Jacques is clearly irritated, yelling at the child.

"Calm down, calm down, calm down," he says, and add "shut up" before squeezing the child's face in his hands.

Then the priest looks the child in the eyes and gives him a strong pat on the cheek with the left hand.

The aggression provokes an immediate reaction from the horrified parents of the child and other members of the family, who finally move him away from Father Jacques' control.

Denying that the assault was too severe, Father Jacques told France Info radio on Friday: "It was somewhere between a caress and a slap, I hoped to calm him, I did not know what to do."

"The boy was screaming a lot and I had to turn my head to pour water on him.

I told him to "calm down, calm down," but he was not calming down. I tried to hug him. I just wanted him to calm down. "

"I apologized for my awkwardness with the family, I am finishing my ministry now, it was my last baptism, there is an end to everything."

Jean-Yves, the bishop of Meaux, said he had "taken measures so that the priest would be suspended from all celebrations of baptism and marriage."