Sharing a christening ceremony

[Amber76]

A couple (who are distant relatives of ours) recently arrived at the church to get their baby christened in the Catholic faith and found that another baby who was part of a Traveller family was being christened at the same time. They were aware that other babies may be done at the same time - this is common practice. However, they did not want to have the ceremony while the Travellers were there. The priest agreed that they could come back an hour later. They, together with extended family, went for a drink and returned after the Travellers had left.
I'm not religious but I am disgusted that the priest agreed to this - it really isn't in the spirit of the day.
I'll add that the Travellers were not being in any way disruptive - they seemed to wait very patiently while this "drama" was being dealt with outside.
I think it was an incredibly ignorant thing for the couple to do but others seem to think it was no big deal. Any thoughts??

Ridiculous behaviour. I am baffled as to why they - and the priest! - felt it was necessary to do that, unless of course they actively enjoy enforcing negative stereotypes?

All I can say is, poor baby, if the parents and other family members thought it was okay to do that. :( YANBU.

YANBU, a Christening is where a child is welcomed in to a congregation (ie group of worshippers) and their godparents make public promises to raise them as a Christian. I never understand private Christenings, they entirely miss the point and are usually demanded by non churchgoers who have no intention of keep their promises anyway.

in some churches christenenings are viewed as part of public worship and are announced and they baptise all the babies born in past 3-6 months,

I think they behaved badly but that the priest behaved worse by allowing it, if they knew and from OP they did that it was practice for more than 1 baby to be baptised,... so it was not a private family thing then what they did was really rather horrible and racist, surely 1 catholic is as good as another though I am not catholic but baptist... but even if baptised as adult you do not have veto powers on who else is baptised at same service

ok so maybe priest ( being charitable) what to avoid as big row/fuss but surely the principle that all christians are equal before GOD as brothers and sisters in Christ should take precedence over some prejudice against another christian with a slightly different take on family etc

DD was baptised at the same time as another baby. Maybe your friend felt that the way traveller families go about baptisms, first holy communions etc detract from the main focus of the occasion. Thinking BFGW here. If they were not going about it in a BFGW way then I don't see why your friend objected.

Our church doesn't conduct private christenings as they say it's like joining club with bond of the other members present IYSWIM so either 2 or more babies are christened together or baby is christened as part of main Sunday worship.

Horrible carry-on, and shame on the priest for endorsing it.

Maybe the priest was actually protecting the traveler family from having their baby's christening ruined by having to share it with people like your relatives.

That is vile and completely unchristian. Jesus came to save travellers and non travellers alike.

I'm fairly appalled that the Priest agreed to this. I know for certain that neither of our Ministers would have agreed to this and in fact I believe a short, sharp sermon on some of the basic principles of Christianity might well have been delivered to make the point.

There were 8 other babies baptized with DS. It was lovely.

YANBU. I can't see what the problem was with them being travelers, Their child has as much rights as the others.

Not all at once I might add. The baptismal font wasn't that big. :o

omg what horrid people

I am not remotely religious. I have had my DD baptised. She was done with two other children who were Indian . I didn't know before the thing but didn't recoil in horror at their saris and kurtas.
The priest in your case, was not doing anybody any favours. It was important to my (practicing RC) DH that she was baptised. He wasn't fussed who was there.
Your relatives WBVVVU (and so was the priest)

If there's more than one Christening scheduled for a service the priest would usually let everyone know beforehand. It would generally come up in the discussions before the event.

It's completely irrelevant who the other family were or what their background is though

Thanks for all the responses so far.
I was amazed on the day that they were allowed to get away with it.
But not everyone thought it was awful. Grandmother of baby said "if the priest doesn't mind then we shouldn't mind either"!!

Nice Christian response from Granny.

They were being unreasonable but I think the priest handled it well. He compromised and made sure that the occasion, which is important, for both families was an enjoyable one.

I wonder if he didn't tell them it was a shared occasion and with whom and felt a little guilty. In our church families attend the preparation sessions together so it wouldn't have been a surprise.

The other side of this of course is that we are regular church goers and our priest is very open about the fact that "regulars" have non shared baptisms during the main service amongst their friends from the congregation. Non regulars are baptised in groups of up to four babies outside of the usual mass.

Sounds as though everyone does it differently.

YANBU. Baptisms are meant to be the introduction of a baby to the family of the church - which includes the Travellers. They are not meant to be private.

I can only imagine it's as Rhinestone suggests...

I don't think the priest should have made the traveller family share their babies baptism with the arsey family. I like a private baptism personally, but thats because I am a bit of a cow and I don't want mass to be dragged out an extra 20 minutes every other week for a child I have never lain eyes on before and won't see again until applications for secondary school come around. If a regular is being baptized then i would go (they usually do them about 10 mins after mass has finished).

I'm glad that both DS's had their own baptism and didn't have to share it. I felt that they should have their own ceremony. It was done at the main service so not private as such but each DS was the only child being baptised that day. And yes I am a "regular". But if they had shared it I wouldn't consider the background of the other family a problem unless their behaviour was inappropriate which was not the case here.

I'm really surprised at this - all my dds have been baptised after Mass with at least four other babies being baptised at the same time. There were seven other babies at dd1s. It was great, took the pressure of worrying if your baby was going to scream the whole way through - they all did!

The only people I know who had a "private" christening had a priest who was a relative arrange it.