Muslims in several parts of France and Italy attended Catholic masses on Sunday in a gesture of solidarity after the killing of a French priest in Normandy by Islamist militants.
Advertisement
More than 100 Muslims were among the 2,000 faithful who packed the 11th-century Gothic cathedral of Rouen, near the Normandy town where two jihadi teenagers slit the throat of 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.
Nowhere was the emotion stronger than in Rouen Cathedral, near Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where the elderly priest had his throat slit in church, in the name of ISIL.
“They wanted to be with us this morning and I want to thank them in the name of all Christians”, Lebrun said.
Muslim community leaders have refused to bury one of the terrorists who killed a Catholic priest this week in France.
Some of the Muslims sat in the front row and joined their fellow churchgoers in shaking hands, embracing the parishioners and receiving the Holy Communion.
Outside the church, a group of Muslims held up a banner that read: “Love for all.
It’s the house of god”, said a Muslim attendee at a church.
Some Members of the Milan’s Muslim community also attended a mass in the Santa Maria of Caravaggio church on Sunday. I find this very heartwarming; I am confident.
Interfaith scenes of solidarity that included Muslim women in hijabs and Jewish men wearing kippot, happened in France as well as Italy on Sunday.
Ahmed El Balazi, the imam of the Vobarno mosque in Italy’s Lombard province of Brescia, told AP terrorists were “tainting our religion and it is awful to know that many people consider all Muslim terrorists”.
There had been concerns of religious tensions after Hamel’s murder, one of a string recent attacks including one in Nice on July 14 that claimed 84 lives.
In addition to attending church in Rouen, other Muslims went to Mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and in Nice – locations where terror has also struck.
Muslims also attended Catholic masses in Italy, notably at Rome’s Santa Maria di Trastevere church in response to a call by the Sant’Egidio community known for its global mediation efforts.
“We are all Catholics of France”, Anouar Kbibech, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, said in an effort to come alongside those who were impacted. “Another is the behaviour of Muslims who don’t represent us”.
The 30-year-old Frenchman, identified as Farid K., “knew very well, if not of the exact place or time, of his cousin’s impending plans for violence”, the office said in a statement.
Advertisement
Muslim and Christian groups came together Saturday to mourn a French priest murdered by jihadists, as authorities charged a man in connection with the brutal church attack that rocked the nation.
