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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

French Prime Minister: Attending Mass “Most Beautiful” Response to Terror Threat

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Prime Minister Manuel Valls

Here are a couple of snippets from an article at Aleteia.org written by John Burger back in April of 2015. Not sure how we managed to miss this one, unless the politically incorrect nature of the French Prime Minister’s comment caused certain mainstream news agencies to bury the story. Stranger things have happened. Check it out:


“[I]n the wake of a thwarted terrorist attack on churches in France this past weekend, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was clear: attending Mass is “the most beautiful and strongest" answer to terrorism.

Valls spoke to reporters while standing next to Bishop Michel Santier of Creteil, the diocese south of Paris where one or more churches were allegedly in the crosshairs of a 24-year-old Algerian national. The plot, foiled when the student accidentally shot himself and called for an ambulance, was, according to Valls, the fifth terrorist attack authorities thwarted since the Charlie Hebdo attack in January.

"What could have happened is a shock to everyone,” Valls said, adding that he wanted to meet with Church officials to express “our deep emotion and our total solidarity…. This time, it was the Christians, the Catholics of France, who were targeted for the first time. Two churches were in the viewfinder of the individual.”

Valls said that “specific protection” is being provided to 178 Catholic places of worship. 

To attack a church is to attack “a symbol of France," the premier said… "The faithful of the Catholic religion,” he continued, “must be able to worship, go to Mass in perfect serenity. Moreover, it is the most beautiful and strongest of the answers we need to terrorism, which targets France to divide…. France has a great Christian heritage. Cathedrals, churches, chapels, attract tourists, pilgrims, thousands of the faithful around the world. This heritage must be protected, but must remain open, accessible.” FULL REPORT HERE 

REMNANT COMMENT: One wonders if Valls is coming to realize that his boss’s (President Hollande) draconian pro-Muslim “anti-hate” campaign isn’t working out too well.

In any case, though this statement isn’t particularly strong by our standards, by secularist French standards it’s the Edict of Milan. One hopes that after the most recent terrorist attacks in Paris, this seemingly insignificant nod to France's Catholic roots may grow into the beginnings of at least a faint awakening in France, that if France does not remember the promises of her baptism—if she does not recognize the satanic nature of her 1905 law on the Separation of Church and State--she will be destroyed from within and may one day cease to exist altogether.

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc s'il vous plaît prier pour la France catholique

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Last modified on Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Michael J. Matt | Editor

Michael J. Matt has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper's editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church and the modern world. He is the host of The Remnant Underground and Remnant TV's The Remnant Forum. He's been U.S. Coordinator for Notre Dame de Chrétienté in Paris--the organization responsible for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres, France--since 2000.  Mr. Matt has led the U.S. contingent on the Pilgrimage to Chartres for the last 24 years. He is a lecturer for the Roman Forum's Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera, Italy. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll) and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to Catholic groups about the Mass, home-schooling, and the culture question. Together with his wife, Carol Lynn and their seven children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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