to think a priest shouldn't invite little girls into his home

[TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied]

Ok this is my 3rd AIBU of the night and usually steer clear of this section because it's scary

But anyway, everyone's being unreasonable at the mo and I need to get it out.

So we went to our priest the other night to sort out our wedding blessing. He's a nice guy, a little odd, but nice and about 60. We went to his house next to the church and school. When he opened the door there was a little girl of about 7 playing in the car park. He shouted to her 'would you like to come in?' she said no and he said 'why? Come in.' so she did.

Then he said 'where do you want to go? Do you want to watch television or talk?' she said watch TV and clearly felt a little uncomfortable. So he said 'right that's upstairs'. We followed and sorted out the blessing. He then gave DS and the girl a teddy each from his collection. We left and the little girl stayed.

He didn't ask her parents if she could come in- they wouldn't have known where she was, and it was just her and him.

Clearly nothing untoward, but it seems a bit naive for a man to invite a young girl into his home when no one else is there. All kinds of accusations could fly around.

Er, priests aren't the only people who abuse children.

Sorry, I meant priests aren't the only people who have abused people.

I think I eman that.

DH is bothering me.
Go away dH!

ROFL at MP - "I can see it now: AIBU to expect that a parish priest should not be luring children into church by filling the font with Haribo"

Absolutely justabout

And in fact, as a very liberal Anglican, I would say that a marriage is in fact merely an external way of recognising the sacrament that the persons in the marriage have already brought about through their relational love to each other

so it's all good

justabout, have you been AWOL, not seen you around for a while, nice to see your input here

Good luck with the "wants a baby" bit of life

TBH I am begining to wonder if the OP rang the wrong door bell and some priest down the road is still waiting for her. Her story does up and shift0 a lot as questions come up, just because she's been on here a long time it doesn't mean she can't make stuff up.

Perhaps the priest is naive but perhaps that child has a terrible home life, something is wrong with a seven year old outside in a car park unsupervised and unlooked for. That does not make the priest an abuser.

And whilst we are on the subject of paedophile clergy the Anglican Church has had it's fair share of child abuse cases here and in Australia.

Lots of Catholic churches in the US offer blessings after civil marriages, even years after the weddings. No catholic priest in his right mind there would ever ask an unattended child into the rectory and especially would never give a toy, or tell the child to go upstairs to watch tv. Hurrah for lawyers! Unfortunately there are still quite a few who are not in their right minds.

congrats and good luck justabout

more congrats and good wishes from me, justabout, brilliant news.

One practical objection to baptism-by-haribo, though... maybe I've missed something, but aren't haribo sweets? As in, not liquid? Are we talking boiling a whole packet of haribo sweets into some kind of sticky mess and wouldn't it ruin the Christening robe, leading to endless litigation, stress-related illness and ultimately the breakdown of civil society as we know it?

I'm finding this a bit difficult to follow..

The little girl went upstairs to watch TV , so I can't understand how you ended up in the same room as her to question her about her relationship with the vicar ?

Big LOL at "ecumenical matter"

Is that 'ecumenical matter' in a Father Ted kind of voice?

What else could it be?

How about we celebrate with a nice cup of tea, then?

Hmm I'm bored with coming back to this and seeing people saying I'm a liar. You must all be a whopping bunch of liars to assume other people are lying. What would be the point. Who could be arsed to make up lies? The sotry adds up because it's EXACTLY what happened. End of.

Panini, sadly there have been a lot of trolls round here at one time or another. So naturally people are alive to discrepancies in a series of posts.

Anyway, Celia's right, you need to talk to the Bishop. If anything is wrong, it's your duty to protect the child. If not, the priest needs a reminder that he shouldn't be taking this risk.

So why don't ypu answer my question then.The priest sends the little girl upstairs to watch TV and she was still there when you left.Yet you manage to question her at the end of your visit whilst the priest gets the teddies?

Hang on katiestar; the OP is not on trial here.

I don't think it actually matters whether or not the OP happened or is a theoretical situation- and I believe it did happen- the discussion about the points it raises remains the same.

I think maybe some people just refuse to believe that such a thing could happen, so accuse the OP of lying about it, picking holes in her story, because it 'couldn't possibly be true'- although edam is right, and people are suspicious because of trolling. Ironically, it's a situation that echoes the themes of the discussion on this thread

Just because a story about a priest who is (possibly) a paedophile is a cliche, does not make it untrue. The cliche came about for a reason, as dittany pointed out in her post.