Another Catholic church in France has been vandalized.
According to French website CNEWS, Notre-Dame-du-Travail had its exterior spray-painted with pro-Muslim, anti-Catholic graffiti. The church also had one of its statues of Mary cut in the throat with a knife.
The vandalism reportedly took place between Sunday, July 14 and Monday, July 15.
In March 2023, Sacred Heart Church in Bordeaux was desecrated when perpetrators marked its doors and walls with satanic and communist phrases and symbols. A fire was also lit in the church’s courtyard, but it was extinguished before causing damage to the building.
In February 2024, the church of St. John the Baptist (Saint-Jean Baptiste) in the small town of Val-de-la-Haye had several sacred objects stolen, including the Blessed Sacrament in the form of consecrated hosts.
In October 2020, LifeSite reported that three Catholics were killed in an attack on Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Nice, France, by an Islamic terrorist. A similar attack occurred in Nice in April 2022, when a 31-year-old French national stabbed a priest and nun multiple times shortly before the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass at the church of Saint Pierre d’Arène.
The graffiti on Notre-Dame-du-Travail, which is located in Paris and in English means “Our Lady of Labor,” included slogans like infidels needing to pray to Allah, the Catholic Church is of Satan, and that heads of Christians will be cut off. CNEWS also reports that the vandals entered through an emergency exit door and broke cabinet doors and burned papers.
While LifeSite’s Paris correspondent Jeanne Smith has previously argued that attacks on church in France are “often tracked down to ‘native’ French vandals, the majority of whom are adolescents or young adults,” one of the most notable acts of evil carried out in a church was the death of Fr. Jacques Hamel in 2016.
Hamel, who was 85, was saying Mass on July 26 in the parish church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy. During his sermon, two Islamic terrorists slit his throat. His last words were, “Go away, Satan!” Hamel was called a “martyr” by many Catholics across the world.