Father Jacques Hamel a saint in life and in death

Father Jacques Hamel, whose throat was cut by smiling terrorists on the altar of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray Church, was everything his Islamic terrorist killers were not. Still profoundly loyal to his Creator in his 85th year, Father died trying to defend the parishioners who came to church to celebrate Mass. No matter how many years pass after his death, Father Hamel will always be remembered as the rose that took bloom among the bramble of horrific Islamic terrorism, a rose whose petals live on to touch the human soul through time and space.

It is true that a coward dies a thousand times, a hero only once, and that the deaths of martyrs are remembered for all time. “Before his death, Father Hamel courageously tried to defend his parishioners, says the distraught nun, who raised the alarm after fleeing the church. (Mirror.co.uk, July 26, 2016)

"They [the terrorists] forced him to kneel and he tried to defend himself and that is how the drama started," she told RMC radio this afternoon. “Speaking to BFM TV, she added that the two men 'recorded themselves' carrying out the murder and did 'a sort of sermon around the altar in Arabic'. "It's a horror," she said of the attack, which ended in the knifemen being shot dead by police after running out of the church shouting 'Allahu Akbar'. “Sister Danielle said she fled the parish church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the northern city of Rouen, as one of the terrorists was slitting the priest's throat. “She then raised the alarm by stopping a passing motorist. “Describing the gruesome attack, the nun said: “Everyone was saying, ‘Just stop, you don’t understand what you are doing.' But it had no effect.

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"They forced us to get on our knees and he [Father Hamel] wanted to defend us. That's when the violence started. “Me, I realised the moment he started attacking Jacques, when he put him on his knees and almost made him fall over. “It was then that I was able to escape. I got out quickly. They were busy attacking him with the knife, so they didn't see me leaving. “Everybody screamed. They recorded what they were doing. It was like a prayer, a sermon at the altar in Arabic." The terrorists who ordered Father Hamel to his knees would neither have known nor cared that he was on his knees for much of the 57 years of his life as an ordained priest, and surely long before that. Yet terrorists Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, who stormed into the church during morning Mass, lectured the two nuns they took hostage, about God: “Then the conversation turned to God. (Telegraph, July 30, 2016)

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"Jesus cannot be God and a man. It is you who are wrong," one of the jihadis said. "Perhaps, but too bad," Sister Huguette replied. “She told La Vie that at that moment she was preparing for her own death, not knowing what was coming next. "Thinking I was going to die, I offered my life to God," she said.

Fr. Hamel was 85, the two nuns in their 80s, as were the two Mass goers in the church with them; the terrorists in their teens. “But the jihadis did not kill the two nuns or the elderly couple who were also in the church with them. They at first tried to get out the front door using the nuns and the other woman as human shields. (Telegraph) Instead police burst in through a side door and shot the two terrorists dead. Only a handful of media outlets reported that Father Hamel died trying to defend the nuns and elderly parishioners. He was so much braver than the media who reported on his death, one referring to Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche as “terrorist sympathizers”, another referring to them as “extremists” and sundry others as “knifemen” and “teenagers”. The truth is that both were on a terrorist watch-list and that ISIS took credit for the attack soon after it was reported. Comments from politicians and pastors alike dominate the Internet following Father Hamel’s tragic death. Sadly, Pope Francis was most vague in his response. Father Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith said he was “mysterious”. “Does the Holy Father believe that ISIS is really a front for something else, Fr Lucie-Smith asked. “I am still trying to work out what it was the Pope meant to say when he spoke on the plane to Poland, saying that “It’s war, we don’t have to be afraid to say this … a war of interests, for money, resources. I am not speaking of a war of religions. Religions don’t want war. The others want war.” (Catholic Herald, July 29, 2016) “This is presumably a literal translation of what he said in Italian, but even in Italian it seems rather vague. What are these “interests”, or vested interests as we would put it in English? And who are the “others” who want war? “It is war, one supposes, because there is fighting, but even this is misleading: there is not fighting in the usual sense of the term. Rather, there is naked aggression against harmless and defenceless people. That is rather different. The term that best sums this up is of course terrorism, or perhaps “asymmetrical war”. “It is really important that we remember that people like Fr Jacques Hamel, or the Christians celebrating Easter in Pakistan, or the nun shot dead in Somalia, or the many Christians murdered in churches in Kenya, are not posing any danger to anyone. They are not provoking anyone either. If this is war, it is a war being fought by one side only. And indeed, even in words, the war is one sided. The threats uttered by Muslims towards Christians are blood curdling; there is no Christian equivalent to ISIS and its propaganda machine. Christianity is not at war with anyone: it is the victim of warmongers.” The sadness of the death of humble parish priest Fr. Jacques Hamel lingers today and always will. People of faith, worldwide honour him as a hero . But only the Vatican can honour Fr. Hamel for what he truly was in life and death by nominating him for the canonization of sainthood. No catch phrases, no Twitter campaigns, no phony politician vigils will do. Fervent prayer transcends weeping and mourning. Pope Francis should crown the life and passing of Father Hamel by nominating him for sainthood. If there is any time that Christians need a Patron Saint for Protection against Islamic Terrorism, it is right now.