"We need time to come to terms with what has happened..."

Father Pål Bratbak, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Norway , told Vatican Radio's Anna Charlotta Smeds that the horror of Friday's tragic events has not yet sunk in. He said that for the people of Norway, the mourning process has started, but probably the entity of the tragedy has not yet been fully realised. He said "we have not yet seen the names or the faces of those who died". And he continued "this came so unexpected, no one could foresee the horror of this manifestation of evil”.

He describes the Square outside the Lutheran Cathedral in Oslo which has been turned into a sea of flowers, candles, messages and greetings to the victims. Father Bratbak also said the young survivors of the attack on Utoeya Island spent the night in a hotel where they received professional help. They are now returning to their families and friends and some have been interviewed by the media to whom they have described their terror and their horrific ordeal. Many thought - at first - that it was a practical joke, and then when they realised it wasn't, they fled for their lives hiding in the toilets, throwing themselves into the ocean, some even hiding under the dead bodies of their friends.

Fr. Bratbak expresses his own feelings of disbelief when he first heard the news over the radio. He was returning from a retreat and happened to be driving just past Utoeya just minutes before the massacre was to begin. He saw a queue of teenagers waiting for the ferry to get over to the island to join their friends there - "I hope" he said "they never made it over".

Father Batbak tells of how he got back to Oslo in time to celebrate the evening mass which was celebrated as a Requiem mass for the dead - at that time he said - "we only knew of two dead. But as the Mass was underway, news of the attack in Uteya reached us". He says it's been a surrealistic weekend. The whole Cathedral area in Oslo was blocked off so many arrived at Mass late because they didn't know. When asked how he would describe Anders Breivig, Father Bratbak says it is a mystery to him how a person could plan this for so long unkown to anyone else. Maybe there were signs, he says, "but it is a tragedy for his family as well , they didn't know anything - he even wrote on his facebook profile that he is Christian which shows how totally unrealistic and out of touch with reality he is: you cannot call yourself a Christian and do the things he has done".

The catholic Church in Norway and in all Scandinavian countries is a multicultural reality. Father Bratvak says that in the Oslo Cathedral parish there are people from 160 countries. So for him - he says - "to be a right wing extremist with a racist mentality and to say he has Catholic sympathy is unrealistic".


listen to the interview...