When climate activists protesting the construction of a huge church complex in the south of France scaled the construction site, nuns chased them.
A sister grabbed a protester who was climbing onto an excavator, but she couldn’t catch him and he fell into a well. Two others tried to restrain a protester, who freed himself. And Sister Benoîte tackled a fleeing activist, pushing him into a ditch.
“They lost,” said Sister Gaetane, who had also grabbed a protester. “We try not to cause any injuries.”
The clashes last month were an escalation of a long-standing hostility between activists and the Missionary Family of Our Lady, a Catholic order that wants to build a religious center in a green valley in the pristine mountains in Ardèche.
The order, part of a Catholic community of about 150 people that includes nuns and brothers and is based in the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier, has been planning for more than 7 years to build the new site to welcome the which is said to be an increasing number of pilgrims visiting the town to venerate a statue of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Snows.
The project includes dining rooms for pilgrims and a cream-colored church of more than 2,400 square meters. The nuns and friars say the church, funded by donations, will bring new prestige to the area.
Their opponents, Brother Clement-Marie said, use “ecology as an excuse” because they are “anti-Catholic.”
But what the religious group says is a project of “the grace of God,” activists say is a polluting eyesore.
The Catholic hierarchy itself has also opposed, in part, the great project. Jean-Louis Balsa, a former local Archbishop, said in 2020 that the church portion of the complex was “disproportionate” and should not be built. The local order had to postpone the construction of the chapel, focusing for now on the other buildings.
About 2 thousand pilgrims visit the place once a year, in December. The statue was erected to fulfill a promise made in 1944 by local worshipers who asked the Virgin Mary to protect the town from German forces.
Lately, campaigners have pinned their hopes of stopping the project on the discovery of a protected plant, Jacquin’s mignonette, at the site. On October 12, activists chained themselves to bulldozers to prevent them from destroying the plants.
But on the second day of their occupation, the activists faced a phalanx of nuns and friars seeking to protect the diggers. The physical confrontations — which caused one brother to sprain his ankle and one activist to break a finger — were followed by an hours-long impasse during which the nuns sang “Ave Maria.”
At the end of the day, the activists returned home, but are committed to continuing to fight.
By: EMMA BUBOLA
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6975589, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-11-08 18:30:07
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