French Store Offers Shoppers a Chance to Pray
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BORDEAUX, France — Shoppers in Bordeaux now can pray as they shop at France’s first ever supermarket prayer room.
The Mammouth chain of supermarkets settled on a prayer room for a new outlet that opened its doors Tuesday after Bordeaux’s bishops objected to initial plans for a chapel.
“For the time being, I have not consented to a place of worship and this prayer room has not been consecrated,” Bishop Marius Mazier of Bordeaux said in a telephone interview Wednesday. The bishop and other indignant religious figures turned down an invitation to Tuesday night’s inauguration party.
The prayer room seats 15 and is complete with candles, cross and altar.
“I am not a practicing Christian any longer but I think it’s great for people who are to able to leave their trolleys and pray for a while,” said a 50-year-old schoolteacher.
Another female shopper, in her 30s, said, “It’s an amusing phenomenon. Like sex shops, it’s a part of modern life.”
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