“Provençal Procession for Rain: Bishop Leads Tradition to Beg for Divine Intervention in Drought-Stricken Draguignan”

This Sunday, May 7, hundreds of people answered the call of the parish of Draguignan to attend a procession through the city to “ask for rain”.

Would it be enough to call her to make her come? In any case, the parish of Draguignan is reviving an old tradition, that of Provençal processions intended to invoke mild weather.

Organized this Sunday, May 7 from 4:30 p.m., this procession was held in the presence and on the initiative of the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Monsignor Dominique Rey, to “ask for rain”.

A bishop known to the Holy See. The Vatican had expedited a exceptional inspection of his diocese a few weeks agoand suspended the ordination of priests in his diocese.

Dracénie is strongly affected by drought. The Var prefecture also placed the Argens area on heightened alert at the beginning of May. The municipality of Draguignan and its 40,000 inhabitants are subject to new restrictions on the use of water.

This manifestation which summons the divine was announced online, on the page Facebook of the parish of Draguignanon April 21.

“Drought emergency. We are going to take up the traditions of our elders and procession to ask Heaven to think of us”, explains on its page the parish.

The procession left from the Anglès garden to end at the Saint-Hermentaire estate, under a few drops of rain. Among the elected officials present, the mayor of the town, Richard Strambio (DVC), and the deputy of Var and municipal councilor of the town of Draguignan, Philippe Schreck (RN).

On March 18, it was in Perpignan, in Occitania, that the relics were released. A procession under the sign of Saint-Gaudérique, the patron saint of farmers, was organized. A first for 150 years.

A religious procession also took place on Monday May 1 in southern Spain, in Jaén, Andalusia. The region is facing a historic drought and experienced abnormally high temperatures for the season at the end of April. Thousands of residents marched through the streets of the city to beg for rain with “El Abuelo” (“The Grandfather”), an ancient statue of Christ carrying his cross that had not been taken out for rogations asking for the rain since 1949.