France Archives

Crown of Thorns will return to Notre Dame Cathedral for Good Friday

Apr 7, 2020

Nearly one year after a fire ravaged the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the city’s archbishop will briefly return to the cathedral its most prized relic, the Crown of Thorns, for veneration on Good Friday, the day in which Catholics commemorate Jesus’s suffering and death.

By Elise Ann Allen

With church bells and candles, France honors virus victims

Mar 26, 2020

From famed Gothic cathedrals to modest village churches, places of worship around France rang their bells in collective prayer Wednesday for people who have died and those who are helping keep the sick alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

By Associated Press

During virus, priests master livestream at Gothic church

Mar 23, 2020

On a typical Sunday morning, Father Philippe Rochas greets roughly 350 worshippers as they trickle into the neo-Gothic St.-Vincent-de-Paul church in the heart of Marseille. This Sunday, however, he sat hunched over a webcam as he and his fellow priests prepared an empty meeting room to live-stream Sunday Mass directly to the screens of parishioners confined at home.

By Daniel Cole

5-year sentence for French priest who abused boy scouts

Mar 16, 2020

A French priest who acknowledged sexually abusing at least 75 boys over decades was sentenced Monday to five years in prison, in France’s worst case of clergy abuse to reach trial.

By Nicolas Vaux-Montagny

Pope lets French cardinal embroiled in abuse cover-up resign

Mar 6, 2020

Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of a French cardinal who was convicted and then acquitted of covering up for a pedophile priest in a case that fueled a reckoning over clergy sexual abuse in France.

By Nicole Winfield

Lourdes shrine closes healing pools as precaution against coronavirus

Mar 2, 2020

As the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in Europe continued to grow, the French Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes announced that pilgrims were still welcome, but the pools the sick bathe in hoping for healing would be closed temporarily.

By Cindy Wooden