The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack in France in which two people invaded a church, took hostages and killed an 84-year-old priest.
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“The Catholic Church can take up no other weapons than prayer and fraternity between men”, he said in a statement.
Up to five people were held in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray including a priest and members of the congregation.
The two assailants were killed in a police operation to end the attack.
Their identities remain unclear, according to a French Interior Ministry spokesman.
French authorities have struggled to monitor the thousands of domestic Islamic radicals on their radar, and, in response to the heightened terror threat, President Hollande has vowed to double the number of officials charged with the task.
“The two executors of the attack on a church in Normandy, France, were soldiers of the Islamic State”, the news agency quoted the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as saying.
French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who visited the scene with the president, said he felt “horror at this barbarity, great solidarity with all the Catholics in France in this moment of trial”.
Chief Rabbi Mirvis offered “prayers with our Catholic friends” following a deadly suspected terror attack in a French church.
Three of the hostages were freed unharmed, and another was fighting for their life, said Brandet.
The attack was a “cowardly assassination” carried out “by two terrorists in the name of Daesh (the IS)”, Hollande said.
The Vatican called the situation an act of “absurd violence” and said that the pope strongly condemned “every form of hate” and “prayed” for the victims affected.
France Info says one of the hostages has been killed.
Born in the Rouen area, Father Hamel was ordained in 1958 and was assistant priest in the parish of St Etienne.
“We are particularly affected because this horrific violence took place in a church, a sacred place where the love of God is proclaimed, with the barbaric killing of a priest and the involvement of the faithful”, the statement read. And I invite all non-believers to unite with this cry. The hostage-taking occurred during morning Mass, he told reporters.
Mr Brandet said the investigation into the incident would be led by anti-terrorism prosecutors. French authorities increased security at churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship after attacks in Paris a year ago, but ensuring constant, blanket security is hard in a country with a church in every town and village.
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A cell directed by Abaaoud later carried out the November 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and the March 22 attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people.
