France has witnessed several acts of vandalism and desecration against its churches in the month of December, continuing an unsettling trend that has been set in recent years.
The latest, which took place at the Church of Sainte-Anne d’Arvor in the city of Lorient, occurred on Thursday, December 22nd, just days before Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, and saw statues of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Therese of the Child of Jesus smashed, the nativity scene destroyed, and candles tossed on the ground, the Rennes-based newspaper Ouest-France reports.
One day earlier, graffiti was discovered on the walls outside of 17th-century Saint-Roch Church, in the First arrondissement of Paris. The graffiti tags, which are believed to have been carried out by ultra-left-wing activists, read: “Nazi Frenchs Pro Deutch F… Off” and “Duc de Bourgogne F… Hitler Son.” According to a report from Le Figaro, the inscriptions graphically resemble graffiti made days earlier on the outside of the Louvre. A complaint was subsequently filed and the spray paint was promptly removed by city workers.
On Tuesday, December 20th, a total of 17 impact cracks were observed on three stained glassed windows of the Church of the Trinity in Bordeaux. Six steel balls were discovered near the damaged windows, Le Figaro reported.
A few days earlier, on the night of December 17th, two highly intoxicated 18-year-old students in the city of Rouen climbed the roof of the Saint-Maclou Church, built in the 15th and 16th centuries, and broke one of the church’s pinnacles, causing it to fall to the ground, France Bleu reports.
Additionally, traces of two fires have been observed this month in the Church of Saint-Jean d’Ambert in the Puy-de-Dôme department, according to a report from the regional French daily newspaper La Montagne. Both caused only minor damage.
In December alone, at least five acts of vandalism have been committed against churches. The acts of vandalism come despite French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin having asked department prefects to bring together police and gendarmerie services to provide additional security to places of worship. Darmanin urged “strong vigilance” from the authorities and an increased “physical presence on foot” in front of all places of worship, Le Point reported.
News of the string of incidents this month comes several months after a priest in Carbon-Blanc, a small commune not far from Bordeaux, was held at gunpoint and robbed by three masked men while another priest at the parish had been carrying out a baptism ceremony. Only a day earlier, French Catholics celebrated Assumption Day under the protection of armed guards.
Months earlier, in April, a Catholic church in Nice, France, became a scene of horror when a knife-wielding man attacked a priest, 57-year-old Fr. Rudzinkski, with 20 stab wounds to his chest, and a nun, 72-year-old Sister Marie-Claude, with injuries to her hand.
Due to ongoing security concerns, the city of Nice, which sits on the picturesque French Rivera, has offered places of worship additional layers of security, and now provides churches and other places of worship with emergency call buttons.
In 2021, more than 800 anti-Christian incidents were recorded in France, according to a report from the Catholic News Agency.
