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Paris, Apr 29, 2008 / 12:37 pm (CNA).- The Bishops’ Conference of France has officially announced that Pope Benedict XVI will travel to France for the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that took place in Lourdes. The trip, which is scheduled for September 12-15, 2008, will begin with a greeting by French officials after which the Holy Father will head to the College des Bernardins where he will address the “world of culture.”  Then the Pope will pray vespers at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  Following the prayer service, he will address young people gathered at the Cathedral.  On...

GESTE, France (AP) — Mayor Jean-Pierre Leger was married and baptized his children at Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens church in this village in western France. Not without sadness, he is now planning to bulldoze the 19th century building. The dilemma of what to do with churches that have fallen out of favor — and into disrepair — is facing towns and villages across France and other European countries. Some communities have dynamited churches deemed too expensive to maintain. Others have taken a less radical approach, selling them as housing. In traditionally Roman Catholic France, fewer than 5 percent of the nation's 62 million...

MONTREUIL, France - The faithful are swaying, the walls are sweating and the choir‘s belting out praise to the Lord. It‘s Sunday morning and hundreds of black evangelicals are meeting in exuberant prayer. Cries of "Amen!" rise from rows of neatly dressed adults and clapping children. Gospel singers lead the crowd spelling out the name "J-E-S-U-S!" It‘s the kind of service that could be found in black churches anywhere in the United States. But the sermon ends with "Dieu vous benisse!" ("God bless you" in French). The final hymn is in Lingala, a language spoken in Congo. On their way...

One dozen Christian churches were defiled, ransacked and/or torched by rioters in France during the intifada. (HAT TIP: NO PASARAN.) That's one every other day over the last two weeks. Quite a clip. And during the same period, not a single mosque was torched by the rioters, (whose Muslim-ness has nothing to do with the riots - according to the MSM. And nothing about these targeted attacks against churches has appeared in the MSM, either). In the old days, when the KKK - (who were like today's islamofascists: a group committed to tyranny and willing to use terror to impose...

Thousands of pilgrims packed St Peter's basilica at the Vatican for the beatification of French monk Charles de Foucauld who lived among Muslims in colonial Algeria, and two Italian nuns. In line with the trend set for his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI delegated the beatification ceremony to Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The other two people beatified were Maria Pia Mastena, who died in 1916 -- the same year de Foucauld was killed by bandits in Algeria -- and Maria Crocifissa Curcio, who died in 1957. Both nuns founded religious orders. De...

Tuesday, November 08, 2005 Les émeutiers prennent à une église posted by Joe N. @ 3:16 PM An eyewitness report which appears to be corroborated by commenters from the same town: Afro-Moslems rioters attack a Protestant church. «Tonight the Protestant church in Meulan was attacked. The roof is completely destroyed. I do not yet know if the interior is completely destroyed or not. You can’t smoke in a mosque, but trashing a church is less serious.» | Ça caillasse et ça casse posted by U*2 @ 2:49 PM French radio reports a direct confrontation with riot police in Toulouse charging into a group of 50 rioters...

Paris Riots Spread to Brussels, Berlin The riots that started 12 days ago in the impoverished suburbs of Paris and spread to many regions in the country are already spreading to neighboring countries. Cars were set on fire in Strasbourg, Baurdeau, Dijon, Lille, Marseille and Niza, as well as in Berlin and Brussels. The 12th night of violence affected 300 towns in France and terrified the Old Continent. Radical Islamists opened fire against the police. 34 policemen were injured, the condition of two of them is critical. A man died after extremists beat him up. 1,400 cars were burnt down....

Woman Slits Christian Leader's Throat During Prayer In France Brother Roger Schutz Harbored Jews During Nazi OccupationPOSTED: 7:53 am EDT August 18, 2005 UPDATED: 8:04 am EDT August 18, 2005 PARIS -- The murder of Brother Roger, founder of the Taize Christian community in France, has drawn reactions of shock and grief from the pope and other religious leaders. French police said a Romanian woman slipped into a choir of monks during Tuesday evening's prayer service and slit the throat of the 90-year-old cleric in front of 2,500 horrified pilgrims. The 36-year-old woman had visited Taize in June and was...

TAIZE, France — Brother Roger, the 90-year-old founder of an ecumenical religious community dedicated to peace and reconciliation, was knifed to death by a woman at an evening prayer service attended by 2,500 people, authorities said. The slaying was deplored Wednesday by the pope and the head of the Anglican Church, who called the slain monk "one of the best-loved Christian leaders of our time." < Snip > A Romanian woman wielding a knife killed silver-haired Brother Roger, witnesses said. A community spokesman, Brother Emile, said the monk's throat was cut and he died 15 minutes later. < Snip >...

French Woman to Ordain Herself a Catholic Priest, Facing Automatic Excommunication The Associated Press LYON, France Jul 2, 2005 — A French woman defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest on Saturday. In a small ceremony on a boat, Genevieve Beney was joined by other women from around the world who have taken similar dramatic action to draw attention to the church's policy against women priests. "This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church," Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat.. The...

By Catherine Lagrange LYON, France (Reuters) - A married French Catholic woman was ordained a priest on Saturday, an unlawful step condemned by one of the country's top Roman Catholic clerics. Genevieve Beney, a 56-year-old physical education teacher with a theology degree, took her vows on a boat on the Saone river near this eastern French city before some 60 Catholic activists who support female ordination. The ceremony drew condemnation from the Catholic Church, which reserves the priesthood for men. "This act ... does not fulfil any of the conditions required by the Catholic Church, and such a ceremony unequivocally...

LYON, France — A French woman defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest on Saturday.In a small ceremony on a boat, Genevieve Beney was joined by other women from around the world who have taken similar dramatic action to draw attention to the church’s policy against women priests.“This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church,” Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat. “If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and...

Paris - Pope John Paul II didn’t like the proposed European Constitution because it short-changed Europe’s Christian origins. But that wasn’t the reason French citizens rejected it in a May 29 referendum. They’ve left their Catholic faith far behind. This nation that produced towering saints like the Curé of Ars and St. Thérèse of Lisieux has lost many of her faithful over the past few decades. French men and women who call themselves “Catholic” constitute about 70% of the population. Only 8% to 10% of the Catholic population goes to Sunday Mass, compared to 40% to 45% in the 1960s....

French Catholic Church tries to ban fashion ad PARIS, March 10 (AFP) - France's Catholic Church sought an injunction from the courts Thursday to ban an advertisement for a leading fashion house which is based on Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of Christ's Last Supper. The advertisement - for Marithe and Francois Girbaud - shows designer-clad women in the place of Jesus and the apostles, one of them with her arms around a half-naked man in jeans. "When you trivialise the founding acts of a religion, when you touch on sacred things, you create an unbearable moral violence which is...

Full story at URL... Dec 20, 2004 — By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor PARIS (Reuters) - Evangelical Christians in France face growing problems as authorities enforce secularism, favor Muslims or view them as supporters of President Bush, French Protestant leaders say. Evangelicals, who make up 40 percent of the French Protestant Federation, complain of bureaucratic hurdles when trying to open churches and of being seen as sects because they differ from France's traditional faiths. Leaders of mainstream and evangelical Protestants, who together make up only about two percent of the population in traditionally Catholic France, stress religious freedom is not...

France's latest attack on freedom of religion: The thought police have outlawed Christmas chocolates in the government school monopolies. "It's an unhealthy political affair. Absolutely regrettable," said Andre Delattre, mayor of Coudekerque-Branche, which has shipped traditional chocolates shaped like crosses and St. Nicholas to schools for 11 years. "What's the point? It's the children who are being penalized for this difference of opinion," he said. "They've been deprived of a festive moment." Bruno Frappat, editor of the Catholic daily La Croix, wrote: "In 1968, the slogan was, `It's forbidden to forbid.' In 2004, it's, `Forbidding is a must.' And one...

French Roman Catholic bishops have officially denounced Mel Gibson’s controversial film The Passion of The Christ, which opened in France on Wednesday, as potentially anti-Semitic and a distortion of Christian teaching. In an unusual statement on a commercial film, the bishops’ conference said the traditionalist Catholic Gibson had made a film that might not be anti-Semitic but “could be used to support anti-Semitic opinions”. “In this film, the face of Christ shows through less than the obsessions of our times - the dread of evil, fascination with violence and the search for the guilty,” the information committee of the bishops’...

PARIS, March 3 (UPI) -- France's Senate Wednesday overwhelming adopted controversial legislation banning religious symbols in schools. The 296-20 vote essentially gives the green light to ban Islamic headscarves, Jewish skullcaps, large Catholic crosses and other religious accessories in French public schools by fall. The National Assembly adopted a similar bill last month. The legislation sparked an uproar within the religious community in France and abroad, with many Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders adamantly against the ban. Foreign governments and human rights advocates also criticized the initiative, which the French government argues is vital to defend the country's staunchly secular...

French cinema chains are refusing to distribute or screen Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ because of fears that it may spark a new outbreak of anti-Semitism. France is the only European country where there is still no distribution deal for the film, which depicts the last days of Jesus Christ in graphic detail and is accused by critics of stoking anti-Jewish sentiment. The film was released in America and Australia last week but French distributors are wary of its impact on audiences and want to gauge its reception elsewhere in Europe, where it is due to...

PARIS-Yair Tsaban is very clear about the way he regards Father Alexandre Glasberg, a Jewish-born French Catholic priest named a Righteous Gentile. "I know of no other person who saved so many people in so many different places over so many years," said Tsaban, a former Knesset member. "I would describe him simply as a life saver." Recently, Glasberg was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in recognition of his work saving hundreds of Jews in the nonoccupied zone of France during World War II. Glasberg was honored along with his...