Paul Keenan
Fr Hamel, 84, hailed as martyr for the Faith
French Catholics fear Masses have become a target for Islamists in the wake of the barbaric slaying of Fr Jacques Hamel this week, an Irish priest based in Paris has said.
Passionist Fr Aidan Troy spoke to The Irish Catholic in the aftermath of the latest attack attributed to so-called Islamic State, on a church in Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray in Normandy in which Fr Hamel was murdered by two knife-wielding assailants as he led Mass. Other members of the congregation were seriously injured in attempting to save the 84-year-old priest.
Isolated
“People have asked me, ‘are we safe here?’,” Fr Troy said of Catholics he had spoken to in his own church.
And while he prayed that the Normandy attack would prove an isolated episode for churches, “in my heart I feel this may be something bigger”.
He said the attack had reminded him that two earlier plots involving churches had been uncovered in Paris before they could be launched, one of these targeting the famed Sacre-Coeur basilica in the capital.
Normandy, Fr Troy said, has brought things to a whole new level. “Attacking a man as he celebrates the Eucharist has set a new low. Surely there are places that are off limits, even to the most extreme,” Fr Troy said.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis led Church reactions to the Normady attack, expressing his “pain and horror” at the brutal slaying of Fr Hamel. In a statement issued by Vatican spokesperson Fr Federico Lombardi, Pope Francis said he was praying for the victims and condemned the slaying of the priest “in the most drastic way”.
Shocked
“We are particularly shocked that this horrible violence occurred in a church, a sacred place where love of God is proclaimed,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a statement as he departed Krakow, Poland, where he was present for World Youth Day, Archbishop Dominque Lebrun of Rouen said: “I call out to God, with all people of good will. I dare to invite non-believers to unite in this call!..The only weapons which the Catholic Church can take up are prayer and fraternity among peoples.”