A New Jersey mom says she wants an apology after a Catholic church priest “kicked” her autistic son out of a private baptism ceremony.
Julia Vicidomini said Rev. Luke Duc Tran, the priest at Christ the King Church in Hillside, told her 7-year-old son to leave the church.
Her son, Nicky, has autism and is nonverbal. His sister, Sophia, was being baptized.
Vicidomini said Nicky is comforted when he brings toys with him to public places, but while playing in a candle room adjacent to the baptism, Nicky dropped and toy and it made a noise.
“Out,” the priest says in a now-deleted video Vicidomini posted on Facebook. “This church is not for play.”
Nicky’s mother-in-law then left the mass with him.
Vicidomini said the baptism was a private celebration for just a few family members, but she still felt the priest was “disrespectful.”
“Yes, he was playing with a toy where he should not have been, however, the way the priest kicked him out of the church was completely rude and disrespectful,” Vicidomini wrote in a caption accompanying the video.
“I was told it would, in fact, be a private celebration for just our family, no one else,” Vicidomini said. “With this information, I felt more comfortable taking Nicky as he doesn’t do well with a full Mass and large group settings.”
She said she has spoken with the priest, but the family will still be leaving the church.
“My husband told him…
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