REACTION
Consternation in Cognac, Charente, after the desecration of nearly a hundred graves in a Catholic cemetery. It happened in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, in the cemetery of Breuil, a few days of All Saints' Day, and that while many faithful, believers or not, come to bloom the graves of their missing relatives. The prosecution has just opened an investigation for vandalism. Asked Saturday on Europe 1, Monsignor Hervé Gosselin, the bishop of Angoulême, said he was deeply shocked. Saturday afternoon at 15h, on this day of the dead, he will visit the desecrated cemetery for a time of prayer.
"I will go with a priest from the parish, to organize a time of prayers.We will bless the graves, as a sort of repair a little spiritual," he says at the microphone of Europe 1. Objects of worship have have been torn off, crosses turned, ornaments ransacked ... For Hervé Gosselin, what happened this week is not trivial.
"A form of vandalism, barbarism"
"It's really shocking, it's a strong aggression, a disrespect for death, the dead, we can not speak of an accident, there is a will to break, to destroy, Christian symbols", deplores -t it. And to continue: "It's a place where we respect the dead, when death is not respected, it's still a serious sign, a form of vandalism, barbarism, even if the word is maybe a little strong, I think it's still serious, the sign that's given. "