France loses a religious building every two weeks

Arson, demolition are among reasons for lost churches

One religious building is disappearing in France every two weeks.

That is the conclusion of Edouard de Lamaze, president of the Observatoire du patrimoine religieux (Observatory of Religious Heritage) in Paris.

He is raising the alarm in the French media about the gradual disappearance of religious edifices in a country known as the “eldest daughter of the Church” because the Frankish King Clovis I embraced Catholicism in 496.
 

"THESE BUILDINGS HAVE NOT BEEN MAINTAINED FOR OVER A CENTURY…IT IS ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU CRY” -EDOUARD DE LAMAZE

Lamaze’s appeal for increased awareness came after a fire destroyed the 16th-century Church of Saint-Pierre in Romilly-la-Puthenaye, Normandy, northern France. The fire, deemed accidental, took place on April 15, exactly two years after the blaze that devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The unforgettable image of the burning cathedral, which circled the planet in 2019, pointed to a deeper issue within French society: serious shortcomings in the preservation system of religious monuments, coupled with increasing hostility toward religion.

Lamaze told Catholic News Agency in an interview that in addition to one religious building disappearing every two weeks, by demolition, transformation, destruction by fire, or collapse, two-thirds of fires in religious buildings are due to arson.

While these statistics include buildings belonging to all religious groups, most of them concern Catholic monuments, which still represent a large majority in France, where there are roughly 45,000 Catholic places of worship.

“Although Catholic monuments are still ahead, one mosque is erected every 15 days in France, while one Christian building is destroyed at the same pace,” Lamaze said. “It creates a tipping point on the territory that should be taken into account.”

Lamaze believes that on average more than two Christian monuments are targeted every day. Two-thirds of these incidents concern theft, while the remaining third involve desecration. According to the most recent figures from France’s central criminal intelligence unit, 877 attacks on Catholic places of worship were recorded across the country in 2018 alone.

“These figures have increased fivefold in only 10 years,” Lamaze said, noting that 129 churches were vandalised in 2008.