SAINT-OMER, France — A man was taken into police custody after a major fire broke out at the historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in the northern French town of Saint-Omer in the morning hours of Sept. 2, causing its bell tower to collapse. According to Le Monde, the prosecutor’s office said that a suspect had been taken into custody that same evening and that the man, who was born in 1985, has been known to authorities “for similar acts” in the past, said Saint-Omer’s prosecutor Mehdi Benbouzi, who spoke to Agence France-Presse. Bishop Olivier Leborgne of Arras, Boulogne and Saint-Omer said in a Sept. 2 statement that “It was with shock that I learned early this morning that the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer was suffering a particularly violent and destructive fire.” 120 firefighters contained the flames and no one was hurt, although more than 50 residents living nearby were evacuated as a precaution, officials said. On Sept. 4, Bishop Leborgne met the local community and celebrated a morning Mass in the town’s Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles. (OSV News)
