France: The European Bishops commemorate the first World War in Verdun
Bishops from all over Europe made a pilgrimage to Lorraine, in the north-east of France on November 22, 2014, for the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War. They prayed at Douaumont before the national necropolis that shelters the remains of 130,000 unknown soldiers, and celebrated the Vespers of the Deceased in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Verdun.
“This visit was for us the occasion of a spiritual realization, as we looked back over a whole century to the time when in Europe the light and the darkness confronted each other as never before in her long, eventful and often tragic past,” stated the COMECE (Commission of the Bishoprics of the European Community) in a press release published on November 11 by Radio Notre-Dame’s website.
(sources: apic/radio notre-dame – DICI no.305 dated Nov. 21, 2014)
