French officials have deplored pressure from fundamentalist Catholics that forced churches to cancel two concerts by a Swedish keyboard musician whom they accused of satanism.
The church of Notre-Dame de Bon-Port in the western city of Nantes and then Saint-Eustache, one of the biggest churches in Paris, stopped Anna von Hausswolff, 35, from giving organ performances after protesters accused her of making “the devil’s music”.
On Tuesday in Nantes, about 60 demonstrators described by local authorities as “intolerant radicals”, blocked the entrance to Notre-Dame de Bon-Port before her show. On Wednesday Yves Trocheris, priest of Saint Eustache, cancelled her concert due yesterday after receiving threatening messages. “Anna von Hausswolff is not satanist,” Father Trocheris said, adding that her music “defends causes such as women’s rights and nature and suffering. If I decided to cancel the concert it was not because of her world but for security”.
Von Hausswolff, who affects a “Gothic” art rock style, has been touring Europe playing in churches and cathedrals to promote her 2020 album, All Thoughts Fly. One of her upcoming performances is in London’s Union Chapel. The protesters cited her songs about addiction and a lyric in which she says she “makes love with the devil”.
“The far-right Catholic integralism won over art, but not over love,” Von Hausswolff wrote on Instagram with a picture of herself sitting in the empty Nantes church. It was a “scary, tense and sad situation”, she said.
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The diocese of Nantes said von Hausswolff’s concert had been approved because “nothing in it was contrary to the faith or to good morals”.
Nantes has one of the most active “intégriste” Catholic groups, a movement that campaigns for a return to Latin in services and fiercely opposes gay marriage and other changes in French society.
