At the scene of the murder of Father Olivier Maire, within the Catholic community of the Montfort Missionaries in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, western France, on August 9, 2021. SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP
Will the criminal court be judging a severely mentally ill man or a skilled fabricator? On Monday, January 19, Emmanuel Abayisenga, a 45-year-old Rwandan national, went on trial, accused of murdering Father Olivier Maire, who had welcomed him into the Montfort Missionaries community in the town of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, western France.
Maire was 61 years old. Ordained at the age of 30 into the international Catholic congregation of the Montfort Missionaries, he had studied ancient languages, the history of religions and earned a theology degree from the Centre Sèvres in Paris. He spent much of his life in Uganda working with imprisoned children, then in Haiti, where he lived through the January 2010 earthquake, and in Rome. He was eventually appointed provincial superior of the congregation in France, overseeing international relations and the ties with the Vatican.
He was found on the morning of Monday, August 9, 2021, bloodied with multiple skull fractures at the bottom of the stairs of his residence, within a community that housed retired priests and foreign missionaries. He had died several hours earlier. The day before, Maire had played two organ concerts in the Basilica of Saint-Louis-Marie-Grignion-de-Montfort and celebrated Sunday evening mass. At the request of a nun, he had been hosting Abayisenga for two months. Abayisenga had just been released from preventive detention for setting fire to Nantes Cathedral in July 2020.
