The Church remembers Père Jacques Hamel, Priest and Martyr.
Ora pro nobis.
Jacques Hamel (30 November 1930 – 26 July 2016 A.D.) was a French Catholic priest in the parish of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. On 26 July 2016, Hamel was murdered during the 2016 Normandy church attack by two Muslim men pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant while he celebrated Mass in his church. During the attack, Hamel said "Satan, go!" when confronted by his killers.
Hamel was born on 30 November 1930 in Darnétal, France. At the age of six he became a choirboy in St. Paul's Church in Rouen and at 14 he entered the minor seminary. He served in the military for 18 months in Algeria. He did not wish to be an officer as he did not want to issue orders to other men to kill.
Hamel was ordained as a priest on 30 June 1958. He served as a vicar at the St. Antoine church in Le Petit-Quevilly from 1958, a vicar at the Notre-Dame de Lourdes church in Sotteville-lès-Rouen from 1967, a parish priest in Saint-Pierre-lès-Elbeuf from 1975, and a parish priest in Cléon from 1988. He joined the church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray in 2000.
He officially retired at the age of 75, but was allowed to keep serving in the parish. As a result, he assumed his role as the parish's assistant priest from 2005 to his death.
With local imam Mohammed Karabila, the president of Normandy's regional council of Muslims, Hamel worked since early 2015 on an interfaith committee. After Hamel's death, Karabila described him as his friend with whom he had discussed religion and as also someone who gave his life for others.
The circumstances of his death have led him to be called a martyr by Christians, including Pope Francis, non-Christians, and the press. Calls to make him a saint started soon after his death. The canonization cause was officially opened at diocesan level in April 2017, after Pope Francis had waived the otherwise mandatory five-year waiting period for the opening of such causes.
Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Jacques triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember him in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
