Pope Francis said spanking children is fine, as long as their dignity is maintained, and they are never struck in the face.
"One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say 'I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them,'" Francis said Wednesday during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square,
The Associated Press reported.
"How beautiful! He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on."
This week, the Pope's talk was devoted to the role of fathers in the family. The comments on corporal punishment — a subject the church rarely discusses — seemed to reaffirm its previous stance.
Last year, the United Nations' human rights committee reminded the Vatican that a child's rights treaty it previously signed prohibited corporal punishment of any kind.
The Holy See acknowledged the report and attendant recommendation, but noted that it had no jurisdiction over the world's Catholic schools—it could only enforce the treaty within Vatican City.
It went further still in saying that parents "should be able to rectify their child's inappropriate action by imposing certain reasonable consequences for such behavior, taking into consideration the child's ability to understand the same as corrective."
Nearly 40 countries around the world prohibit corporal punishment of any kind for children. "Reasonable" physical force used in disciplining children is legal in the United States.