French Catholics Bought a Gay Bar So They Could Turn It Into a ‘Pub of Mercy’

A gay bar in Toulon is set to be turned into a religious meeting venue, after a group of Christian missionaries in the French city bought it in a recent auction.

The group known as Missionaries of Divine Mercy, whose church is located next door to the Texas Bar, said in a statement that their purchase, which follows the bar’s bankruptcy, is part of an effort to evangelize the neighborhood.

“The bar of Sodom will become the pub of mercy,” they said.

But they might need “a whole bunch of exorcists to get rid of everything that’s happened in there,” one of the leaders of the city’s gay community told the Local.

The president of the Gay Power Toulon association, 41-year-old Titi, said he “would have preferred if someone else got it, but they’ve wanted the place for years.”