Eighteen dead, 650 injured, 50 of whom in a desperate condition: that is the dramatic blance-sheet of the explosion that devastated the AZF petrochemicals plant in Toulouse on Friday, 21 September. “Love was the victim”, said the city’s archbishop, Msgr. Emile Marcus, at a requiem mass for the victims of the catastrophe celebrated in the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne on 26 September. “A woman who had lost her husband in the disaster – the Archbishop said in his homily – confided her sorrow to me. Perhaps she is here now and by repeating the words she spoke to me, I risk reviving her sorrow. I ask her forgiveness but it is necessary that the world should know. ‘This morning she told me we said goodbye to each other, as if nothing was going to happen. And yet my husband never returned’. And after a long silence, she added: ‘we loved each other’. This disaster caused enormous damage. Some of it can be repaired. But for this woman and for many others, the loss is irreparable: love was the victim. I have no lessons to give you on the value of suffering. As pastor of the Catholic Church of Toulouse, I can only say that I will try to help you. Now I weep with you”.
