London – Badly behaved children can be punished with a smack, Pope Francis has advised parents.
Fathers should avoid weakness and sentimentality and should ‘correct with firmness’ their children’s misbehaviour, he said.
Speaking before a crowd of 7 000 at the Vatican, he applauded a father who had hit his children ‘a bit, but never in the face, to avoid humiliating them’.
The father, Pope Francis said, had a sense of dignity. ‘He needs to punish, do the right thing, and move on,’ he said.
The Pope has already demonstrated that he does not shy away from the use of personal violence. Last month, discussing limits to freedom of speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, he told journalists that ‘if someone says something bad about my mother, he can expect a punch’.
Francis spoke of the need for parents to smack during a speech about fatherhood. He acted out the movement of slapping a child on the bottom and said: ‘Once, in a marriage counselling session, I heard a father say, “Sometimes I need to hit my children a bit, but never in the face, to avoid humiliating them”. That’s great. He has a sense of dignity.’
Fathers, he added, should try not to be ‘a weak father, who gives in, who is sentimental’.
His remarks follow a speech last month in which he said fathers should assume a role of authority. ‘At times it seems like fathers do not know which role to take in the family or how to educate their sons,’ the Pope said.
‘In doubt, they don’t take part, they draw back and abandon their responsibility, maybe retreating into an improbable relationship of equals with their children. It is true you need to be a companion to your children, but without forgetting that you are the father! If you behave only like an equal companion to your son, this will do no good to the boy.’
Daily Mail