The Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux in France presided over a Mass of reparation after the sacrilegious theft of consecrated hosts and ciboriums in a church in the diocese. The prelate expressed his “indignation and anger,” as well as his support for the local community.
According to West Franceone of the stolen ciboriums was the only object preserved after the fire that devastated the church, located in the Normandy region, in 1944 during World War II.
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In a statement Published on October 28, Bishop Jacques Habert reported that on Tuesday the 29th he would celebrate the Eucharist in the church of Notre Dame de Vire, where the events occurred. According The Free ChannelAbout 120 people participated in the Mass.
After pointing out that the theft is “a desecration,” the French prelate offered his prayers for “the authors of this sacrilege in which, without a doubt, they do not measure the seriousness of what they have committed. “The gendarmerie has already started its investigation.”
The bishop regretted these types of events that are part of the current climate of “more violence against people and property” and urged: “We should never respond to violence with violence; We respond with prayer.”
To conclude, Bishop Habert noted that “a few days before the feast of All Saints, I invite you all to meditate on the Gospel of the Beatitudes: Blessed are those who work for peace, because they will be called children of God. Let us ask the Lord to make us instruments of his peace.”
Sacrilegious theft on the eve of Halloween
Although the prelate does not mention it, the theft of the Eucharist occurs a few days before the festival of Halloween on October 31, on the eve of the Solemnity of All Saints on November 1.
in his book The dark charm of Halloween (Il fascino obscure di Halloween), the vice president of the International Association of Exorcists (AIE), Fr. Francesco Bamonte, warns that for Satanists, this holiday marks the beginning of the satanic year.
Although those who celebrate it “have no intention of celebrating witchcraft and the devil,” they put themselves “in communion with this evil spiritual current” and become “more vulnerable to the ordinary and extraordinary actions” of the devil, the Italian exorcist warned.
The priest also warned that on Halloween and around the same time, “acts of blasphemy and sacrilege against the Christian faith and symbols” proliferate, such as the theft of consecrated hosts to be used in “black masses,” in addition to tragedies such as that in Seoul (Korea). South) in 2022, when 158 people died while celebrating Halloween.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.