"
You confine our bodies but you will never confine our souls
": several hundred Catholics again gathered Sunday, November 22 in front of the cathedrals of Bordeaux and Toulouse to demand the return of mass in churches, prohibited during the confinement.
In Toulouse also a few hundred Catholics, many of them families with children, gathered.
LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
Kneeling in the shade of Saint-André cathedral in Bordeaux, more than 300 faithful recited a rosary and sang songs and recitations of prayers during a static gathering declared in the prefecture, under the watchful eye of a police presence discreet and between two banners “
Give us back mass
” and “
Stop the health dictatorship
”.
“Our freedom of worship was taken from us.
We need to go to mass to fully live our faith, ”Marie-Clémence Bourgeois, a student from Toulouse, told AFP.
LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
“
For us, Mass is vital.
We need it now and now.
This ban is nonsense.
Sanitary measures can be implemented and respected in churches
”, explained to AFP Elisabeth Blanchet, a student who set up with four friends the collective“
Pour la messe Bordeaux
”.
"
We will be there every Sunday as long as they do not give us back mass,
" she added.
Thomas Robesson, 42, came to demonstrate with his family, does not understand “the logic” of the government: “The buses are full, the subways are full, the supermarkets are full, but mass is prohibited?”.
LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
Before the collective prayer, one of the organizers asked the faithful to reach out to move away from each other, in order to respect social distancing.
"
The right to mass, the leaders must protect it and guarantee it to us
", declared at the microphone this young man wearing a large black beret.
This is not a "
community claim
," he said.
“
We are not a State within a State, we are a Church
”.
Read also: Believers mobilize for Mass despite threats of sanctions
In Toulouse also a few hundred Catholics, many of them families with children, also gathered in front of Saint-Etienne cathedral for the second Sunday in a row.