Soon after the news of the attack broke, a Vatican spokesman defined it as a “terrible news, which unfortunately adds to a series of [recent] violent acts” creating “immense pain and worry”.
Advertisement
Pope Francis has expressed his horror at the “barbaric killing” of a priest during a hostage taking at a church in France on Tuesday.
“For some time we can say that the world has been at war, piece by piece”, said Francis, speaking in solemn tones about the slaying Tuesday of an 85-year-old parish priest during a celebration of the Mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, France. French President Francois Hollande has said that the two assailants “claimed to be from Daesh”, also known as the so-called Islamic State (ISIS).
“We are particularly struck because this awful violence took place within a church, a sacred place in which God’s love is preached, with the barbarous murder of a priest and the involvement of the faithful”, Lombardi said.
Confirming Father Hamel’s death, the Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, who cut short a visit to Poland to return to his diocese, said: “I cry to God with all men of good will. The only arms which the Catholic Church can take up are prayer and brotherhood between men”.
Advertisement
The archbishop, who is on his way back to Rouen, said he was leaving behind in Kraków “hundreds of young people who are the future of humanity” and he said he asked them “not to give in to the violence and become apostles of the civilization of love”. In January of that same year, a total of 12 people were killed in the French capital after terrorists stormed the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
