April 19, 2019

FRANCE: 2018 France Had 1,063 Anti-Christian Acts - 2 Christian Churches Were Vandalized PER DAY. 10 Catholic Christian Churches Burned In ONE WEEK In February 2019.

Newsweek
written by Brendan Cole
Thursday March 21, 2019

France has seen a spate of attacks against Catholic churches since the start of the year, vandalism that has included arson and desecration.

Vandals have smashed statues, knocked down tabernacles, scattered or destroyed the Eucharist and torn down crosses, sparking fears of a rise in anti-Catholic sentiment in the country.

Last Sunday, the historic Church of St. Sulpice in Paris was set on fire just after midday mass on Sunday, Le Parisien reported, although no one was injured. Police are still investigating the attack, which firefighters have confidently attributed to arson.

Built in the 17th century, St. Sulpice houses three works by the Romantic painter Eugene de la Croix, and was used in the movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.

Last month, at the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houilles, in north-central France, a statue of the Virgin Mary was found smashed, and the altar cross had been thrown on the ground, according to La Croix International, a Catholic publication.

Also in February, at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, in south-central France, an altar cloth was burned and crosses and statues of saints were smashed. The attack prompted Lavaur Mayor Bernard Canyon to say in a statement: “God will forgive. Not me.”

And in the southern city of Nimes, near the Spanish border, vandals looted the altar of the church of Notre-Dame des Enfants (Our Lady of the Children) and smeared a cross with human excrement.
Consecrated hosts made from unleavened bread, which Catholics believe to be the body of Jesus Christ, were taken and found scattered among rubbish outside the building.

Bishop Robert Wattebled of Nimes said in a statement: “This greatly affects our diocesan community. The sign of the cross and the Blessed Sacrament have been the subject of serious injurious actions.

“This act of profanation hurts us all in our deepest convictions,” he added, according to The Tablet, which reported that in February alone there had been a record 47 documented attacks on churches and religious sites.

The Vienna-based Observatory of Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, which was founded in cooperation with the Council of European Bishops Conferences (CCEE) but is now independent said there had been a 25 percent increase in attacks on Catholic churches in the first two months of the year, compared with the same time last year.

Its executive director, Ellen Fantini, told Newsweek that while in many cases the motive for the attacks was not known, France faced growing problems with anti-Christian violence, especially by anarchist and feminist groups.

“I think there is a rising hostility in France against the church and its symbols," but "it seems to be more against Christianity and the symbols of Christianity.

“These attacks are on symbols that are really sacred to parishioners, to Catholics. Desecration of consecrated hosts is a very personal attack on Catholicism and Christianity, more than spray-painting a slogan on the outside wall of a church.”

She said that while France had a long tradition of secularism, it was seen as a culturally Christian country, and so any "attack on the church as a symbol of religion was also an attack on authority and patrimony.
"The pressure is coming from the radical secularists or anti-religion groups as well as feminist activists who tend to target churches as a symbol of the patriarchy that needs to be dismantled," she added.

On February 9, the altar at the church of Notre-Dame in Dijon, the capital of the Burgundy region, was also broken into. The hosts were taken from the tabernacle, which adorns the altar at the front of the church, and scattered on the ground.

Last month, the Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe met French church leaders and said in a statement: “In our secular Republic, places of worship are respected. Such acts shock me and must be unanimously condemned.”

Senior Figures within the French Catholic Church expressed their sorrow at the rise in attacks on symbols of their faith.

Last month, the secretary general of the Bishops’ Conference, Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, told France Culture that desecration of a church was not the same as a common burglary.

“To open the tabernacle, to take the hosts and to profane what for us is the basis of our faith, that is to say the presence of Jesus Christ in the hosts is something that is terrible for us.”

Update: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect the transubstantiation belief of the Catholic Church. It also clarifies that the Observatory of Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians is now an independent organization from the Council of European Bishops Conferences.
Express News, UK
written by Joe Gamp
Wednesday March 30, 2019

A SEVEN day spree of vandalism has seen Catholic churches targeted across France sparking fears of a fresh wave of anti-Christian sentiment in the country, including one church being defiled with human EXCREMENT.

At least 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches have been reported across the Channel since the beginning of February. French Roman-Catholic newspaper La Croix International reported how the attacks on churches took place across France. Senseless acts included the desecration of altars, the defacing of Christ on the cross and in an extreme case, human excrement being spread across the walls of a holy place of worship.

According to the outlet, one of the first attacks was on February 4 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houilles, Yvelines, where a statue of the Virgin Mary was found smashed on the ground.

The same church also had the altar cross thrown to the ground and the celebrant’s chair was damaged.

On February 5, an altar cloth was found burnt and crosses and statues torn down or disfigured at the recently refurbished Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, in south-central France.

The fire was found early by a parish secretary and did not spread - but the altar and adjacent walls were badly damaged by smoke.

Following the incident, local district deputy Jean Terlier said in a statement: “I strongly condemn the vandalism of Lavaur Cathedral and I share the outrage aroused by this intolerable act.”

And Lavaur city mayor Bernard Canyon said: “God will forgive. Not me.”

On February 6, just a day after the Saint-Alain Cathedral incident, vandals at Notre-Dame des Enfants (Our Lady of the Children) church in Nimes broke into the tabernacle and scattered altar hosts on the ground.

According to local news reports, the vandals also drew a cross on the wall with human excrement and damaged other religious items in the church

Bishop Robert Wattebled of Nimes said of the senseless attack: “This greatly affects our diocesan community.”

“The sign of the cross and the Blessed Sacrament have been the subject of serious injurious actions.”

“This act of profanation hurts us all in our deepest convictions.”

Day later, on February 9, a similar attack occurred at the Church of Notre-Dame de Dijon, Côte-d'Or, about 175 miles south-east of Paris.

The tabernacle was opened and the Eucharist scattered, while the altar cloth was soiled and a sacred missal was torn.

According to La Bien Public, Notre-Dame Father Emmanuel Pic believed the vandals wanted to show anger towards the “heart of the Catholic faith” as nothing of monetary value was stolen.

Father Pic said: “Nothing of value has been broken, but it is the intent that is very shocking. This is what characterizes profanity.”

And on February 10, St Nicolas in Houilles was subjected to another attack six days after the first mindless act of vandalism.

According to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, the tabernacle was found thrown on the ground. However, a 35-year-old man later confessed to committing the act to police.

It is unclear if the attacks are related, but police investigations into the wave of attacks are ongoing.

In a statement to Twitter on February 13, Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe voices his outrage at the attacks ahead of a meeting with Catholic bishops from across the country.

Mr Phillipe wrote: “In one week, in France, 5 degraded churches. In our secular Republic, places of worship are respected. Such acts shock me and must be unanimously condemned. I will tell the bishops of France at the meeting of the forum of dialogue with the Catholic Church,” he said.

The fresh wave of attacks come two years a campaign of Christian persecution against Catholic churches across France and Belgium in 2016.

The incidents were said to be carried out by the Islamic State (IS).

One of the most gruesome attacks included the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel, who was killed by jihadists while holding Mass at a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy.
The Spectator
written by Douglas Murray
Monday April 15, 2019

Civilisation only ever hangs by a thread. Today one of those threads seems to have frayed, perhaps snapped. It is impossible to watch the footage coming out of Paris, all that can be done is to groan and turn away. It is not possible to watch the spire of Notre Dame collapse. It is not possible to watch the great cathedral consumed by fire.

Evelyn Waugh once said that in the event of a fire in his house, if he was able only to save his children or his library, he would save his library because books were irreplaceable. Only at a moment such as this is it possible to concede the slightest truth in that remark. Almost anything could be borne rather than the loss of this building.

There will be recriminations, of course. There will be disputes about budgets, and overtime and safety standards and much more. It is worth reading this piece from two years ago about the funding problems that existed around the cathedral’s restoration. But if Notre Dame can burn then all this is as nothing, because it tells us something too deep to bear. As I said a couple of years ago in a book, in some ways the future of civilisation in Europe will be decided by our attitude towards the great churches and other cultural buildings of our heritage standing in our midst. Do we contend with them, ignore them, engage with them or continue to revere them? Do we preserve them?

Though politicians may imagine that ages are judged on the minutiae of government policy, they are not. They are judged on what they leave behind: most of all on how they treat what the past has handed into their care. Even if today’s disaster was simply the most freakish of accidents, ours would still be the era that lost Notre Dame.

We would have to tell future generations what it was like, this treasure that we lost. At the start of this decade I was living part of each week in Paris, commuting back and forth to a little flat on the edge of Le Marais. Each time I headed out to the earliest Eurostar on a Monday morning I would see the great cathedral first as I turned into the street. One winter morning heavy snow was falling and as I headed to the station I stopped dead, alone in the street with the cathedral and just drinking in the sight of a building I had seen a hundred times before. When I got into London a friend could see I was just beaming still, radiating far too much joy for such a time of the week. He asked how I was and I remember simply saying, ‘This morning I saw Notre Dame in the snow’. It was like that.
The same Islamist terror that Marxist. White Supremacist, and Islamist worldwide tell us are fake, lies, made up by Israel Mossad and USA CIA. Islamist also like to say quite frequently that "some people did something". Well, I thought the word some meant a small amount. But apparently, after looking up the word, some can also mean 'an unspecified amount or number'. Very clever use of this word some with this duel meaning because it does also mean 'at least a small amount'. I'm sure the use of this word some is not by accident either. It's surely being used by design.
(emphasis mine)

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 10:13 PM

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