A man searches for the priest in a church in Forbach, as Leo XIV's visit to Metz approaches

A thirty-five-year-old man, born in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia, was arrested inside a church in Forbach, in the Moselle, after entering it and shouting « Allah Akbar » several times while visibly searching for the priest. The alarm had been raised by the parents of fourteen-year-old schoolgirls who had heard him proffer this proclamation. The parish priest was not present. The intruder carried an Opinel-type knife, which he did not brandish, along with a small quantity of cannabis resin; taken into custody, he was charged with apology of terrorism, carrying a weapon, and a narcotics offence.

The events took place as Leo XIV's visit to Metz drew near, the last stage of his journey through France, about forty-five minutes by road from Forbach. The suspect was unknown to territorial intelligence, appeared on no watch-list, and had only two entries on his record, none connected to terrorism. His custody was extended to assess his religious environment and his psychiatric profile. The mayor of Forbach condemned a cowardly and odious act that could have had grave consequences, and praised the courage and lucidity of the adolescent girls who gave the alarm.

The accounts diverge on points that are not minor: the exact day of the arrest, the name of the church, and above all the reading of the facts. Where one retains the charge of apology of terrorism, another reports that the priest saw in him a man in grave psychological distress who simply wished to speak to him. The extension of the custody, precisely to probe his psychiatric state, says plainly enough that the motive is not settled. Neither do we settle it.

The house of God and the life of the innocent

A church is not premises. It is a consecrated house, wrested from profane uses to be nothing but the place of sacrifice and prayer. Our Lord Himself drove from the Temple those who put it to unworthy use: « It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves. » The zeal of the house of God, sings the Psalmist, hath eaten up the just. To enter it in order to threaten a priest is to join to the peril of persons the profanation of the place.

The fifth commandment forbids murder not only when it is accomplished, but in the hatred and the danger from which it proceeds. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that this precept condemns not homicide alone, but anger, hatred, and everything that endangers the life of one's neighbour, for « he that hateth his brother is a murderer. » That the priest was absent and the knife not brandished takes nothing from the gravity of the intention; it measures only the mercy of the outcome.

The measure

Two things hold together without being confused. The first is that the peace of the house of God was violated, and that a priest was sought there to be done violence: this the tradition names without evasion, sacrilege in the order of the place and threat in the order of persons. The second is that we pronounce nothing on the soul or the responsibility of this man, whom the justice of men will examine and whom God alone judges at bottom; the possible confusion between fanaticism and illness is not ours to untangle.

There remains what deserves to be praised. Children heard, understood, and warned; parents relayed the alarm; the evil was stopped before it was accomplished. The vigilance that protects the innocent is a virtue, and the Church has always held it to be one. The faithful will draw from it neither fear nor fury, but this ancient lesson: the house of God is to be guarded, the life of one's neighbour is to be defended, and never does hatred have the last word.

Sources. Gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapter XXI, verse 13 (Douay-Rheims, from the Vulgate); Psalm LXVIII, 10; Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment.