Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly received a call last Friday (18th July 2008) from a patron informing us of an incident of vandalism at Anse Poules Bleues; it involved the grotto of the Virgin Mary, which has been there at Anse Poules Bleues for the last fifty-eight years. Apparently in the evening of the 17th July at around midnight the statue of the Virgin Mary was destroyed by some unknown persons. When our reporter reached the scene of the incident – “it was a heart wrenching sight”, he commented, the Statue of the Virgin Mary laid on the floor in pieces, hundreds and hundreds of pieces laid there and the grotto turned upside down.
This is not the way to treat a religious relic, especially in a country where over eighty percent of the population is Christians. There is a strong possibility that the grotto has been there well before the culprits were even born. This incident has brought added shame onto us as a people; it goes to show that morality in Seychelles is currently at an all time low, it had never been so bad. At a time when our country is going through a difficult time economically, the last thing we need is an attack on our spiritual icons. Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly condemns this barbaric act in the strongest possible term. We are counting on Commissioner Gerard Waye-Hive to get to the bottom of this cowardly act….
