CELESTINE, Ind. (AP) -- Week in, week out, year after year, German immigrants in this small farm town have passed through the doors of St. Peter Celestine Catholic Church to marry, mourn and confess their sins.

On a recent Sunday, though, it was their priest who was confessing, acknowledging to his congregation a sexual relationship he had years ago with a teen-age boy.

The parishioners in the town's only church bowed their heads and prayed. And instead of shunning the Rev. Michael Allen, they forgave him. The priest's bishop also said Allen deserved a second chance.

"We've been praying to accept Father as he is now, to forgive him and move on," said Martha Schepers, 65, who leads a church prayer group in this town 130 miles southwest of Indianapolis. "He is a human being. I don't think it should be up to us to judge."

At Celestine, "people deal with problems easily," said parishioner Dana Gehlhausen, 18. The allegations shocked those in the church, "but they got over it."

Parishioners nationwide have shown little patience as allegations of sexual abuse by priests increase. Almost four in five Catholics surveyed in a recent poll said priests who have sexually abused children or teen-agers one time should be forbidden from participating in parish life.

The CBS-New York Times poll of 1,172 adults was taken the last week in April and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points, larger for the subsample of Catholics.

But in a handful of places like Celestine, church members have stood in support of their priests. Like some bishops, some church members question whether a one-strike-and-out policy is the proper avenue for the church.

In Maine's St. John Valley, parishioners rallied around two priests who admitted abusing a teen-age boy more than 20 years ago. At Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ in New Orleans, some 300 parishioners signed a petition on behalf of a priest removed because of allegations of inappropriate encounters with two youths in the 1980s.

And in Oak Brook, Ill., parishioners rallied around the Rev. John F. Barrett, who said he was falsely accused. At a news conference, some held signs saying "We love you, Fr. John."

Experts say parishioner response to abuse allegations often depends on how much they admired the priest before the accusations.

"If it's a priest they have grown to like very much, it's a great shock," said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. "If it's a priest they've always had some questions about and felt uncomfortable in his presence, it's a different case entirely."

But for victims and victim support groups, that kind of response can be devastating.

"It's one thing not to be believed or not be supported, that's awful enough," said David Clohessy, director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "But to see people rallying around your perpetrator, it's horrible."

At a recent Sunday service, Allen, 57, joked about a mouse in the church and slapped the palms of parishioners as he walked down the aisle near the end of the service.

A week earlier, the mood had been more somber as Allen acknowledged that abuse accusations dating from 1975 were true. Allen apologized to parishioners for hurting them and asked them to pray for his victim, David Prunty, now a 42-year-old social worker in Minnesota.

Prunty said the monthslong sexual relationship began when he was 16 and Allen was counseling him following his father's death. He told the Evansville Courier & Press earlier this month that Allen initiated the relationship while Allen was an associate pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Princeton.

Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger said he first became aware of the allegations against Allen in the early 1990s and sent him through a two-year treatment program that included time at a center for clergy with sexual problems.

He assigned Allen to the Celestine parish about a year ago and stands by that decision. Allen is not allowed to work in youth ministry, and Gettelfinger believes no one in the parish is at risk.

"The people have come to love him because of his pastoral gifts, his ministering to his people, his presence to his people, the attention given to them," Gettelfinger said. "He really has been the priestly leader that they were looking for, yearning for, and now have."

Allen declined comment, except to say: "I'm grateful for the community support and humbled by their love."

Prunty, in a phone interview, said parishioners in Celestine and other parishes find it easier to blame the victim or dismiss the allegations than confront a pastor's abuse.

"If it was their own children, they'd have a very different response," Prunty said.

On the Net: Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests: http://www.peak.org/(tilde)snapper

Diocese of Southern Indiana: http://www.evansville-diocese.org