"Madam, you don't have to leave,'' he said. "Your baby's not bothering me.''

"Yes,'' the woman replied, "but you're bothering my baby.''

For those times when a baby is disturbing a worship service, some churches offer a cry room -- a room with a window to the sanctuary where parents with fussy babies can see and hear but not be heard.

Cry rooms came into vogue in the 1950s, at the peak of the baby boom. Today, they are a top priority for some congregations and passe for others.

The latter now prefer a large lobby where parents can pace the floor with fussy babies. The multipurpose area features glass doors and a sound system without isolating parents and children.

Cathy Trusz, the source of the humorous story opening this piece, is pastoral assistant at St. Anne Catholic Church, 929 N. Duke St. The church converted its choir loft to a cry room in 1978.

Trusz, the mother of four, said although St. Anne's has a cry room that works well, she never used it.

"I always thought it was separate,'' she said. "But some people love it and use it every week. It's just another option.''

Churches with cry rooms usually offer nurseries as well, where parents can leave children in the care of others and worship without interruption.

At St. Anne's, Trusz said, some parents come and go to the cry room during worship, while others go and stay. She added that nobody cares if a baby cries in services at the church.

"We're a very accepting community, especially our pastor'' she said. "A child once cried through the whole homily, and he didn't miss a beat....This is a wonderful parish for families.''

Trusz said some area Catholic churches have cry rooms with different names. St. Leo the Great, 2427 Marietta Ave., and St. James in Lititz call their cry rooms the children's chapel.

The Rev. William Sullivan, St. Leo's pastor, said the church has a lot of families with little children, and many use the children's chapel, furnished with pews from its former sanctuary.

He said sometimes he sees the top of a little head crossing the window and then the light goes out.

"They can just reach the light switch,'' he said.

Sullivan said some children stay in church without a problem.

"Some parents have a beautiful control without dominance,'' he said. "It's amazing to see.''

Sullivan, who has been a priest for 43 years, said he liked to chatter in church when he was a child. He said he especially liked to call out to his sister.

"Her name was Rosemary,'' he said, "but I couldn't say that. I called her "Rosary.' One time a woman came up to my mother after Mass and said, "It's so nice for a child to cry out for his rosary.'''

Sullivan said his mother apologized repeatedly to the priest for the noise "Billy'' made in Mass.

After Sullivan became a priest, his mother told him the priest had said "he will probably be a priest because he wants to talk in church.''

Most pastors contacted for this article agreed that parents mind fussy babies more than pastors do. They said they usually can rely on parents' good judgment to leave when a child becomes disruptive.

Lancaster County Bible Church, 2392 Mount Joy Road, Manheim, does not have a cry room, but its $12.6-million facility now under construction includes plans for one.

"As we reach out to the community, we want visitors to feel comfortable,'' said Amy Dearborn, director of children's ministries.

"Sometimes when people are new they don't want to leave their children with a stranger,'' she said. "A cry room is a high priority for us.''

Scott Shonk is an architect with the firm of Beers and Hoffman, which designs many churches. He said security has become a concern for many of his clients.

"Many designs include how children are received,'' he said, adding that some larger churches have a system for verifying that the same person who dropped off a child picks him up.

Hempfield United Methodist Church, 3050 Marietta Ave., has about 30 vibrating pagers it gives parents who leave their children in the nursery or classrooms while they attend services.

Staff members notify parents when a child has been crying for more than 10 minutes.

George Bagley served as project supervisor when the congregation built its new sanctuary in 1998. He said the building included space that served as both a cry room and prayer room, but it soon had to be converted to a nursery.

"It's more than a cry room,'' he said. "It's used a lot.''

The Worship Center, 2384 New Holland Pike, doesn't have a cry room per se, but it does have a classroom with a TV monitor where parents can take crying babies and watch the service.

Bob Longer, children's pastor, said plans for a similar room in a proposed new sanctuary are up in the air. He said the church encourages parents to do what makes them comfortable.

"We have a nursery, but some parents choose to keep babies with them, which is fine,'' he said. "There's not one more right than another. It's never wrong for a family to be together.''

The Rev. William E. Eberle, pastor of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 301 St. Thomas Road, said his church is happy to have children in church.

"The cry room and nursery are for the comfort of parents. They're more uptight about children making noise than I am,'' Eberle said. "Part of life is hearing little kids crying and fussing.''

St. Thomas has had a cry room for about 10 years. But instead of a window to the sanctuary, parents can watch the service on closed circuit TV.

Ushers serve Communion to parents in the recently remodeled room, which also serves as a parlor and for meetings, brides and families at funerals.

Eberle said St. Thomas's 10 a.m. Sunday service is child friendly, with one sermon a month designed just for children. He recalled asking a rhetorical question in a sermon.

"A little boy yelled out "No,''' he said. "The whole place broke up.''

Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, 3131 Columbia Ave., included a sitting room that also serves as a cry room, among other purposes, in its 2001 building project.

"Babies don't disturb me,'' said the Rev. Jonathan Jenkins, church pastor. "But they disturb the parents.''

Jenkins said he believes it's important for the congregation to have children in worship.

"Particularly for a Lutheran church,'' he said. "The liturgy involves a person in a lot of different ways. We want children to be part of that from day one.

"It can't be like a concert, where everybody has to sit still and listen,'' he added.


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