THIS is the moment that a defenceless
baby’s relatives grabbed their child away from a
priest after he appears to hit him during his
baptism at a
church.
The shocking video of the scene which happened in an unknown
French speaking country has gone viral and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
In the unsettling footage, the priest can be heard saying: "It's a tantrum, this is called a tantrum.
"I will spill water on the forehead, hmm?
“And then, I'll kiss the lil' kid - because he'll have become a little Christian.
“I will scream louder than you. So, calm down. Calm down.”
The priest is shown to hit the poor child in the face because he would not stop crying.
After the clergyman slapped the struggling child, the distressed relatives grabbed their baby.
The shocked congregation can be heard to gasp at the strike from the priest and the scene that was unravelling in front of them.
The people in the church can be heard to say: "Don't hit the kid" and "Sir, we do not hit him."
The 40-second video has sparked outrage across social media with one user saying: “I probably would have slapped the dude myself.”
Another person said: “If that video would end with the father giving the priest a very strong bitch slap it would be perfect.”
User K_uzuki said: “I saw this video and I cried, I was filled with anger and sadness. If I was the mother of that baby I wouldn’t hesitate to push or slap the damn priest back.”
It is not yet clear where exactly the clip was captured, however, the news was first reported on a local news website of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and the priest in the video is speaking French, so it's believed to hail from the French territories in the Caribbean Sea.