Some unusual frankness from a church official:

Once maybe I touched him or so, but didn’t, it wasn’t — because it’s not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that you know. We were just fondling,” Father Anthony Mercieca, 69, said in a phone interview with CNN affiliate WPTV from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo in the Mediterranean. CNN.com

It wasn’t rape — just an older authority figure playing with a kid’s privates.

I mean, let’s not blow things out of proportion here.

Mercieca, however, rejected the idea that he sexually abused Foley, saying, “See abuse, it’s a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?”

I mean, he did seem to enjoy it. There are, uh, I mean, there are ways to tell, know what I’m talking about?

Wink wink.

So I’m not sure what to call it, but because there was no penetration and he seemed to like it, “rape” and “abuse” are definitely out.

How about we call it “a good time?”

Mercieca apologized to Foley but implored the former lawmaker to remember the fun they had together.

“I would say that if I offended him, I am sorry, but to remember the good time we had together, you know?” he said. “And how really we enjoyed each other’s company. And to let bygones be bygones. Don’t keep dwelling on this thing, you know?”

Besides, there are plenty of psychiatrists and such to help it if — and that’s a big if — Foley had any problems with it.

“Let’s say it was 40 years ago, almost 40 years ago, so why bring this up at this late stage?” Mercieca asked. “Anyway, he will overcome it, with a psychiatrist you know. Mark is a very intelligent man.”

Mercieca said he and the teen Foley were friends, “almost like brothers,” and they went on trips together to the beach, rodeo and arcade. They also went out of town together to New York and Washington, where they visited museums.

Maybe “incest” would be a better word, then?

This is like something from the Onion.