According to the French Catholic daily newspaper LaCroix, this photo shows Emmanuel
Abayisenga, the man accused of killing Montfort Fr Olivier Maire, meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2016. The photo is from a November 11, 2016, ‘Year of Mercy’ jubilee event for people who are homeless or otherwise socially excluded. Photo: CNS A Rwandan immigrant awaiting trial for the arson of the cathedral in Nantes turned himself in to police for killing the French provincial of the Montfort Missionaries.
Emmanuel Abayisenga, 40, a Catholic, had been released on bail earlier this year for the 2020 arson at Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral in Nantes. Montfort Father Olivier Maire, 60, had offered him housing in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, south of Nantes.
Media reported police sources said early indications were that Mr Abayisenga had beaten Fr Maire to death.
Fr Santino Brembilla, superior general of the Montfort Missionaries, described Fr Maire as a “religious, a priest and a missionary of great value, a specialist in Montfort spirituality who accompanied his entire community in coming to a profound understanding of the message of their founder, Louise-Marie Gignion de Montfort,” Vatican News reported.
Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, president of the French bishops’ conference, tweeted: “The murder of Fr Maire is a terrible tragedy. He will have lived following Christ until the very end, in the unconditional acceptance of all. While waiting for more complete elements that the investigation will bring, I pray for his family and his religious brothers. I pray for all the people traumatised by this tragedy, for his assassin too, who is at least psychologically adrift, and I assure (Lucon) Bishop (Francois) Jacolin of my fraternal support. May God grant us the grace to serve him always and in all.”
Montfort
Fr Maire served on the Montfort Missionaries’ general council from 2006-2011. Soon after that, he was elected provincial of the French province. At 60, Fr Maire was the youngest member of the French province.
In an August 9 statement on his diocesan website, Bishop Laurent Percerou of Nantes said he worked with Fr Maire during 2021 on local parish concerns, appreciating his “qualities as a listener, his benevolence and sense of the Church”.
French Senator Bruno Retailleau sent a tweet paying tribute to Fr Maire at the hand of someone he was housing out of charity.
“His death testifies to the kindness of this priest whom I knew well and whose depth of faith I had been able to appreciate. His death is a great loss,” the tweet said.
On July 25, 2020, Mr Abayisenga admitted lighting two fires in the area of a 17th-century organ and a third above an electrical panel in the Cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul a week earlier. He had been volunteering at the cathedral as a warden and had the keys to the building because he was responsible for locking it up on the day of the fire. He had been in the country since 2012.