Fr Hamel declared a martyr

Pope Francis has declared that a French priest murdered in his own church by Islamist extremists is a martyr and “blessed”, indicating that a canonisation cause could proceed quickly.

The Pope spoke while celebrating a Mass on the morning of 14 September in memory of Fr Jacques Hamel, 85, whose throat was slit when two armed men stormed a church in a suburb of Rouen on 26 July. He used the words martyr or martyrdom 10 times in his homily.

“He is part of the chain of martyrs,” Francis said in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta at the Vatican. “This man accepted his martyrdom with the martyrdom of Christ at the altar.” Francis celebrated the morning Mass with Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen, who came with 80 pilgrims from the archdiocese. Archbishop Lebrun donated Fr Hamel’s breviary to the church of St Bartholomew on the Island in Rome, which is run by the Sant’Egidio community as a place to honour modern martyrs.

The Pope said Fr Hamel was in Heaven and urged people to pray for his intercession. Archbishop Lebrun later told reporters that the Pope had said to him that the priest should be venerated, a step usually reserved until after a sainthood procedure starts.

In his homily, Francis said there were Christians who were killed and tortured because they “don’t deny Christ”. “This cruelty that asks for apostasy – let’s say the word – is satanic,” he said. “How much good it would do if all religious denominations were saying: ‘killing in the name of God is satanic’.” Fr Hamel’s murder should strengthen fraternity among peoples, the Pope said, describing him as a “humble, good man, who worked for fraternity”.

Today, 300 relatives of victims of the 14 July Islamist attacks in Nice will visit the Pope in the Vatican. Eighty-seven people were killed at Bastille Day celebrations in Nice after a man driving a truck rammed crowds gathered at a seaside promenade in the city.