Thieves Didn’t Have a Prayer at Monastery

Heavily armed bandits seeking cash at a wealthy, isolated monastery wounded a monk in a gun battle with brothers who had taken up arms after a wave of robberies.

The Rev. Pierre-Marie, abbot of the 19th-Century Trappist monastery Notre-Dame des Neiges, said a burglar alarm sounded at the monastery about 3 a.m. Monday, an hour before morning prayers.

The bell signaled to the 36 monks, who produce 4 million bottles of wine a year on their immense estate in the Languedoc region of southern France, that they were being robbed for the third time this year.

The monks have been organizing themselves as a self-defense force the last few weeks. In previous robberies, “the telephone lines were cut and we couldn’t call for help,” the abbot explained today.

Arming themselves with shotguns, the brothers raced outside to a nearby administrative building where the alarm had sounded.

One brother blasted a round into the air, flushing two masked men. They fled down the winding road to the monastery.

The bandits found their way barricaded by a parked car--and shotgun-toting Brother Zepherin, organizer of the monastery’s hunting expeditions, who demanded they stop.

The robbers pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol and opened fire on Brother Zepherin and other monks approaching in cars.

The monks returned fire.

Brother Zepherin fell with 200 pellets in his leg.

The robbers got into a waiting car with one or two accomplices inside and sped off empty-handed, the abbot said.

They were still at large today.