– Referencing the recent murder of French priest Fr. Jacques Hamel, Pope Francis said the persecution of Christians happening today, under any form, is a work of Satan.
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The pontiff celebrated a Mass to commemorate Father Hamel, attended by his family and some 80 members of his church’s community in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, outside Rouen, including its bishop.
Father Hamel could be made a saint without needing miracles because he died a Christian martyr.
His death marked the first Islamist attack on a church in western Europe and came just 12 days after a Tunisian who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria drove his truck through a crowd of Bastille Day revellers in the Riviera city of Nice, killing 84.
“This cruelty that asks for apostasy, let’s say the word, is satanic”, the Pope said in a homily September 14.
Speaking to pilgrims from Rouen at a special service in the Vatican, the pontiff was quoted by Reuters as saying: “He gave his life for us so as not to deny Jesus”.
And during this morning’s Mass Francis argued that Fr Hamel’s murder should build up fraternity among humanity describing him as a “humble, good man, who worked for fraternity”.
Preaching at Domus Sanctae Marthae, Pope Francis began his homily by recalling the martyrdom of the early Christians who refused to commit apostasy.
Christians were now suffering persecution through being “imprisoned, tortured and killed because they refuse to deny Jesus”, he said.
Archbishop Lebrun said he had brought the photo and asked Pope Francis to sign it with a note for three religious women who had been with Father Hamel at Mass that day. “He gave his life so as not to deny Jesus”, the Pope said, while simultaneously accusing the author of his persecution: “Be gone, Satan!” He is a part of this chain of martyrs. “At the end of Mass, when he was greeting everyone, he signed it and said to me, ‘You can put this photo in the church because he is “blessed” now, and if anyone says you aren’t allowed, tell them the pope gave you permission'”.
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He said Hamel was a martyr to whom all people of faith should pray for peace “and also the courage to tell the truth: killing in the name of God is satanic”.
