LOURDES, France (LifeSiteNews) — Authorities have opened an investigation after the Sacré-Cœur parish church in Lourdes, located in the Hautes-Pyrénées region of southern France, was vandalized with anti-Christian messaging earlier this week.

According to Le Figaro, Police discovered the damage during a morning patrol on November 11. The church was defaced with blasphemous graffiti in France’s most prominent city of pilgrimage amid an upsurge in anti-Christian crimes across the nation.

Officers found the church’s main entrance covered in graffiti written with white marker. On November 11, police revealed the messages contained expressions “insulting to the Catholic religion.” Municipal workers were dispatched shortly after to remove the defacement from the building’s exterior.

However, further details have now been revealed as images released on November 12 confirm that two messages had been written directly on the central wooden doors of the neo-Gothic church. The left-hand panel read “À mort Jésus-Christ” (“Death to Jesus Christ”), and the right-hand side carried the words “Sale race de Jésus-Christ” (“Dirty race of Jesus Christ”).

🚨⛪ ALERTE | Voici les INSCRIPTIONS ANTICHRÉTIENNES qui ont été découvertes sur la porte centrale de l’église paroissiale du Sacré-Cœur à Lourdes : “À mort Jésus-Christ” et “Sale race de Jésus-Christ”. https://t.co/UjNvideW8F pic.twitter.com/5FoBTG6aQ8

— L’Écho Chrétien (@lechochretien) November 12, 2025

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The national police have launched an inquiry into the incident. As of Wednesday, investigators had not identified the perpetrators, and no organization had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Completed between 1875 and 1903, the Church of the Sacred Heart is among Lourdes’ principal places of worship outside the renowned Marian sanctuary, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858. The structure, notable for its 213-foot spire and pale stone façade, was built to accommodate the influx of pilgrims following the apparitions receiving papal recognition. It remains a central part of the town’s spiritual and community life.

The incident coincided with the popular release of the devotional film Sacré Cœur (2025), which recently became an unexpected box office success across France and is now being distributed abroad.

“The fact that a building dedicated to the Sacred Heart was attacked while the film ‘Sacré Cœur’ was a box office hit in France and being exported seems particularly telling,” commented a reporter for Reinformation.TV.

READ: French court overturns mayor’s cancellation of ‘Sacred Heart’ film screening

The vandalism in Lourdes adds to a growing list of anti-Christian incidents reported across France in recent years.

Data presented to the European Parliament in February 2025 by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe recorded 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes in 2023 across the continent. Nearly 1,000 of those occurred in France, representing 41 percent of all such cases in Europe.

According to the Observatory, 62 percent of these incidents involved vandalism, 10 percent arson, and 7 percent physical assaults. The following year saw a sharp increase in France, where actual and attempted arson attacks on churches rose by more than 30 percent.

In the first five months of 2025 alone, French authorities documented 322 anti-Christian acts, marking a 13 percent rise compared with the same period in 2024, Valeurs Actuelles reported.

Concern over the frequency of such attacks has prompted calls for action. In September, 86 French senators signed a joint statement urging enhanced security for churches and Christian sites nationwide. Senator Sylviane Noël of France’s foremost conservative and centre-right party wrote that “Christians must be protected in France, as all other believers are.”

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