The Archbishop of Montpellier has condemned the staging of a Halloween event of an anti-religious nature in a former church where two bishops are buried.
Archbishop Norbert Turini issued a statement on 27 October expressing his “deep concern” over plans for a performance titled Dark Witness in Église, due to take place on 31 October in the Maison des Chœurs, a 17th-century chapel in Montpellier now owned by the city.
Although no longer used for worship, the building retains the tombs of two former bishops of Montpellier, including Bishop Charles de Pradel, founder of the Saint-Charles Hospital.
The archbishop described it as a site that “carries a spiritual, historical and human memory which remains alive in the conscience of many citizens.”
He warned that hosting an event of such a character in a place once dedicated to God would inevitably “shock” and “has no place there.” Many Catholics and non-believers alike, the bishop said, were “legitimately troubled” by the idea of transforming a former house of prayer into a setting for an irreverent performance.
Archbishop Turini made clear that his objection was not to artistic freedom itself. “I do not in any way dispute artistic freedom,” he said. “But freedom of expression belongs to everyone: believers also have the right to say peacefully that they feel hurt when religious symbols are misused or mocked in a place rich with ecclesial memory.”
He reminded civic authorities that secularism, as defined by the French Republic, “does not consist in erasing all religious presence from the public sphere,” but should instead “guarantee freedom of conscience, protect religions and call for mutual respect among all citizens.”
The archbishop insisted his declaration was “neither political nor polemical,” describing it as an “appeal to dialogue, to mutual consideration and to respect for the places which have shaped our common history.”
He concluded by expressing the hope that French society would remain “capable of a freedom that does not wound, a creativity that does not scorn, a way of living together which honours the memory of persons and of places.”
The Maison des Chœurs, located on Place Albert Ier, is among the oldest ecclesiastical sites in Montpellier. Once part of the city’s rich Catholic heritage, it was secularised during the Revolution and later transferred to municipal ownership.
Its use for a performance perceived as mocking faith has revived longstanding tensions in France over the treatment of former churches now administered as cultural spaces.
