Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray : several symbols, desecrated, and must be purified – The Figaro

VIDEO – The place of worship where the priest Jacques Hamel had been murdered has re-opened its doors Sunday afternoon during a ceremony charged with emotion, and symbols.

special envoy to Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray

During the hour they spent in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, the killers of the father Hamel have defiled four symbols of the catholic faith. “They will be purified,” explained the archbishop of Rouen, on Sunday before the ceremony. In front of the press, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun has detailed all the steps of the ritual of repair.

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The processional cross had been torn from the wall where it was sealed. “Instead of my butt, I’m going to enter the church with the heavy cross, as far as my energies would permit,” it said the archbishop. It has been placed on a temporary support before being attached to the wall in the week. The altar, “stabbed so strange” by the killers, was sprinkled with holy water, as are the walls of the church, the ground where the blood of the father Hamel has been poured and the assembly present. A new paschal candle this large candle is annual on the occasion of Easter, has also replaced the one that had been broken after having been blessed. Finally, the rosary that had been taken out of the hands of the statue of the Virgin Mary, was made and doused with holy water. It is a statue of Our-Lady-of-Fatima, which the Portuguese community is very attached. Two members of this community that is very important in the centre of the town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray were responsible for handing the rosary.

previously, a rally was held at the rectory, where lived the father Jacques Hamel. A procession went to the church with the singing of the litany of the saints. In the latter, the archbishop announced that the door of the church “abused” became the second “holy door” of the diocese with that of the cathedral of Rouen, until the end of the jubilee of mercy, on the 20th of November next. “The crossing of the holy door symbolizes the passage from sin to grace. Always open, she expresses the expectation of God who stands on the threshold with open arms to bring us mercy”, explained the archbishop.

once the church filled up, began the rite of sprinkling, to wash what was dirty. The archbishop delivered his homily on the Gospel of St. Luke, and commented, more particularly, a sentence spoken by Jesus to the apostles shortly after his resurrection: “to you To be the witnesses”. The altar has been prepared: it has put the tablecloth, candles, flowers. The bread and the wine have made. The end of the ceremony was to conform to a traditional mass.