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Fr. Philippe de Maistre: 'It got a bit lively, a bit long, was getting rather noisy.'Le Figaro

PARIS, April 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A priest whose Mass was stormed by armed police this month has demanded that churches in France be opened on May 11.

Fr. Philippe de Maistre, the pastor of the Church of Saint-André de l’Europe in Paris, made the on-camera demand last week, asking for the partial relaxation of the French coronavirus lockdown to include the reintroduction of public worship. 

The video was edited and published by French newspaper Le Figaro

“I clearly request that on May 11 all churches will be able to reopen,” De Maistre said. “And I believe the government can rely on the Catholic Church, which has played the game [i.e., followed the lockdown regulations] scrupulously from the beginning.”

The priest added that there was nothing to prevent him on May 11 from saying 10 or 15 Masses on Sunday with congregations of 50 or 100 in his church, in which normally almost 1,000 people in total are spread out over the usual three services.

“I believe the government has good reasons to be sure that this is done,” he allowed. 

Earlier in his recorded statement, the priest indicated that French people are tired of and frustrated by the continuing ban on religious services. 

“I’m a parish priest, so I see a little of what’s going on,” de Maistre said. 

“And [we know] also the feelings of Christians, and not only Christians, because we are very close to people. We spend our time trying to help people on the street, to make people understand, to be careful around one another,” he explained.

“There is fatigue and there is a little exasperation, it has to be said, when we see that the restoration of worship will be postponed.”

De Maistre was saying a live-streamed 8:00 A.M.  Mass on April 19, as he has done every Sunday since the beginning of the French lockdown, when armed police stormed the church.

At the time, there were well under the current limit of 20 people in the building, as the only people there were the priest, the organist, an altar server, a cantor, someone transmitting the liturgy with a smartphone, and three parishioners to make the responses. The Church of Saint-André de l’Europe can contain 500 or 600 people at a time.

French Catholics were outraged, and the archbishop of Paris subsequently spoke out against the illegal invasion.

“The law forbids police to enter a church armed and without the permission of the pastor,” de Maistre explained in the new video. “On this occasion, as the archbishop [of Paris] said, there was no terrorist. There was no threat to public order.”  

After Mass was over, de Maistre found a message on his telephone from a local who had accused him of saying “clandestine Masses” for three weeks and informed him that she had lodged a complaint with police. The priest observed on camera that his Masses were legal and not at all clandestine, as “there have been 2,000 views on YouTube.”

Despite de Maistre’s plea, Masses will not resume on May 11.

According to the Guardian, the May 11 easing of the French lockdown will involve the reopening of most shops, libraries, small museums, and elementary schools. Public eateries, like cafés, bars, and restaurants, will remain shut. People will be able to travel outside their homes without being questioned by police. They will be allowed to gather in groups of no more than 10. Beaches and some parks will stay closed.  

“Religious authorities have been asked not to organize services before 2 June,” the Guardian reported yesterday.