Peter over at With A Grain of Salt, after reading Matthew’s story on Dazed Primates, Big Gulp’s, and Redemption was reminded of a story of a mess created by his children after the Easter Vigil Mass.
The family attended a little celebration in the presbytery. Caught up in the festivities, they lost track of the wrecking balls on little legs. After a desperate search, they discovered to their horror that the kids had broken and entered into the assistant priest quarters and in a stroke of absolute genius of miniature menace had rubbed Vicks Vap-o-rub all over every surface of the room. In the process, the kids had managed to get as much Vicks in their eyes as they did the room and thus were cowering with tearing red eyes awaiting their certain doom.
Believe it or not, this is where the story gets wierd…
The children were in such distress from having rubbed the Vicks into their eyes we took them to clean up in a bathroom before the mandatory smacks and banishment to the car with mum, while I made profuse apologies and embarrassed offers of compensation for anything that was damaged in any way.
The assistant priest was livid with rage. He demanded that I spank the children and was undeterred when I said they had already been punished and were going home to face more serious consequences. He demanded I bring them back inside and spank them there in front of him. The party spirit faltered somewhere when the whole house rang with cries of “I want to see them spanked!” Even the next day, when I called to ask for an itinerary of items I could replace he refused compensation but insisted “Justice is not done till they are spanked in my presence.”
For the next few weeks we had homilies and parish bulletins repeating the theme of spanking as justice and the right of adults to be protected from children.
I’ve been a little twitchy around the smell of Vicks ever since.
Now, I can understand the priest being somewhat peeved or worse. But going Al Capone (“I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND!) on the rugrats seems a wee bit much. However using your homilies and the bulletin to wage a Vicks vendetta must definitely be frowned upon in the priestly handbook, no?
I think father should have paused long enough in his vap-o-rampage to have a “what would Jesus do?” moment.
I think it would be very funny if we all chipped in and sent Peter a case of Vicks for the holidays. It would be even funnier if we sent one to Father.
Be sure to pay Peter a visit and give him your sympathy (plus he has a good graphic to commemorate Father Bruce Banner). I would like to say as a parent we have all been there, but I don’t want to go anywhere near there.
September 29, 2008 at 3:08 am
Twenty minutes is clearly too long not to know where your children of that age are in a public place. But I can imagine that there was a celebratory mood and perhaps Mom thought Dad had them and Dad thought Mom had them…. I left a toddler by the side of a busy street once, while the rest of us got in a cab; my husband thought I had her in the front seat and I thought he had her in the back seat. Luckly she was still standing there waiting when we frantically made the cab driver turn around and race back there, and luckily she didn’t run into the street when she saw us. (She is 28 now-survived her faulty parents.)
The father said the kids got smacked. Not that that is the only way to do it, but he did do it. The kids were thoroughly in trouble and they knew it.
I second the comment of the person above who said that this priest may be a sick individual who likes to see children in pain, particularly, being hit on their buttocks. Such things do exist. In this case his demands were so over the top that I would bet a moderate amount of money on it. And of giving sermons about it is really bizarre. It shows he doesn’t understand his own pathology and believes he was making this demand out of outraged injustice and a belief in parental strictness.
You know for some people “strictness” and “discipline” and so on are highly sexually charged words.
I think someone who is local and aware of this situation-maybe the father himself, should write to the bishop about it. I would think that just the demand that the children be spanked in his presence should be enough for this priest to be mandated into therapy.
Susan Peterson
September 29, 2008 at 3:12 pm
It might be a generation or cultural difference. Under thiese circumstances my mother would’ve spanked and then made me apologize and clean up.
September 29, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The priest was already out of bounds, though in charity one could say that he was reacting from anger, and not thinking before he spoke. Once he starts giving SERMONS on the subject, however…
I would have been furious about it were they my children and the priest started preaching against them. In that case, I think I propose a biblical solution to the offending prelate: The measure you use shall be pressed and poured out upon you. I will spank my kids right here for what they did – but then I will slap YOU silly as well for unfairly denigrating them and my family in front of the entire parish.
And though it may sound extreme, consider that the parent would be defending his children, who are priceless and irreplaceable, while the priest was merely concerned about mere objects.
September 29, 2008 at 10:31 pm
After reading through the posts, Foxfier and Marie’s really stick out. First, as a parent, I have to say that disciplining one’s children is an ENTIRELY family matter. NO ONE, save the STATE LAWS to which one is subject should interfere with how a parent disciplines his/her/our children. If the mother/father in question does not believe in spanking, they THEIR wishes should be respected, just as much as the parent who DOES spank their child. Parents are the #1 earthly authority in the lives of the children. Full stop.
Secondly, the priest absolutely had a right to seek compensation for what was done to him. This does NOT mean a spanking show at his request. It DOES mean that he should have the right to either monetary compensation and/or demanding the children apologize to him and explain to him to his satisfaction what it was that they did wrong, why it was wrong, and what the consequences of their actions were.
From the limited info on this topic, it would appear the priest, the parents AND the readers quick to judge the motives of all parties involved all need a time-out.