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| Father Jacques Lacroix - Baptism with violence |
This was the experience of a French family in the Collegiate Church in Champeaux, near Melun, in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, in June, 2018.
As this video shows, Father Jacques Lacroix (89), struggled to calm the child down and repeatedly told him to 'calm down' before squeezing his face, then staring him in the eyes before losing his temper and slapping his face with his left hand. There then followed a brief struggle as the horrified parents attempted to prise the distressed child out of the clutches of the priest, who eventually angrily pushed the child into the arms of its father.
Father Jacques later told France Info radio that it was more of a caress than a slap because the child wouldn't hold his head still while he poured water over it. He also announced that he wouldn't be conducting any more baptisms.
Father Jacques has now been suspended from performing anything but the Mass, and then only if cleared beforehand. Bishop Jean-Yves, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese the violent priest worked explained that Father Jacques had suffered a 'loss of coolness' and that his assault was 'explainable but not excusable'.
This came after the YouTube video went viral. One wonders how much longer this ill-tempered priest would have been allowed to continue working if he had not become such an embarrassment to the Catholic Church.
Father Jacques has since apologised to the family for his 'clumsiness' and the child has been baptised. Hopefully he will not have been scarred psychologically by this unprovokes assault, but what an appropriate introduction to a faith for which violence has always been a means by which it propagates and maintains itself throughout the world.
There appears to be no record of a complaint to the police for what, had it happened in public, would have been regarded as a criminal assault.
Thanks to @Fem Jonkman of Twitter for bringing this to my attention.
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