“Support for Catholics in the Rhône”, tweeted Gérald Darmanin this Friday after the damage to the Saint-Louis-Roi church in Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or. The Minister of the Interior also indicated that an individual had been arrested and placed in police custody.
On Tuesday, this church was vandalized, announced Olivier de Germay, the archbishop of Lyon, in a press release. “The objects present in the church, such as the candles, the books, the vases, were thrown on the ground, he writes. The Stations of the Cross and the paintings in the choir are essentially destroyed, as are two large crucifixes. “He will celebrate a mass of reparation this Friday, at 7:30 p.m. “so that it is again possible to celebrate in this church”.
The individual identified thanks to “video surveillance”
The Archbishop of Lyon considers that these acts, “because of their violence and their target, constitute what the Church calls a profanation, that is to say the will to attack the sanctity of the place”. In the press release, he specifies that the ongoing investigation does not allow, at this stage, to prejudge his intentions.
According to the Lyon prosecutor’s office, the individual “quickly [été] identified thanks to the video surveillance of the town “then arrested by the gendarmes of Limonest on Wednesday. “A psychiatric report has concluded that his judgment has been abolished” and his police custody must soon be lifted “so that he can be hospitalized”, he added.
“The investigation is continuing in order to determine the exact circumstances of the commission of these degradations and the degree of responsibility of their author”, concluded the prosecution.