France: A priest’s throat slit during Mass

Two Islamists slit the throat of 85-year-old Fr. Jacques Hamel on the morning of July 26, 2016 as he was celebrating Mass in his church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, in the northwest of France. The two young terrorists also seriously injured a parishioner and took two religious and one of the faithful present hostage. Alerted by a Sister who was able to escape, police forces shot down the attackers. They were known to the police for having tried to return to Syria in 2015 to fight by the side of the Islamic State. They were filed under “S” for “danger to the security of the State”. One of the attackers, 19 years old, had been set free in March 2016 and placed under house arrest with electronic surveillance. According to lefigaro.fr on July 26, 2016, he had sanctimoniously assured the magistrate that he “regretted his former attempts.” The Public Prosecutor had filed an appeal to keep him behind bars, but in vain.

Fr. Jaques Hamel.

Pope Francis declares that “all religions wish for peace”

The President of the French Republic, François Hollande, went to the site, then gave a short speech from the Elysée in which he declared without batting an eyelid that attacking “a church, killing a priest, is a profanation of the Republic.”

On the day of the assassination, the archbishop of Rouen was in Krakow, for the World Youth Days (WYD). Archbishop Dominique Lebrun responded to the death of Fr. Hamel in a press release published by the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF): “The Catholic Church cannot take up other arms than prayer and brotherhood among men. Here I leave behind hundreds of young people who are the future of humanity, the true future. I ask them not to give up in the face of violence and to become apostles of the civilization of love.”

In the plane that took him to Krakow for the WYD, on July 27, Pope Francis mentioned Fr. Hamel, “this holy priest . . . who died precisely in the moment in which he offered his prayers for the entire Church.” According to the press agency I.Media, the pope claimed that the world “is in a piecemeal war” that is a continuation of the world wars of 1914-1918 and that of 1939-1945. An “organized” war, but not a “war of religions, no! All religions want peace. Others want war.” And the pope lashed out at “ wars for money, for resources, for nature, for dominion.”

In the cathedral of Rouen, July 31, 2016.

The CFCM calls for Muslims to go to Mass

A meeting was organized on July 27, at the Elysée, with the leaders of all religious grou[s in France. The representatives of the cults wished to “strongly reaffirm their unfaltering solidarity against barbarism,” in the terms reported by the website of France Telévision. It quoted Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, as declaring irenically: “The particularly harmonious relations that exist among our different religions in France are an important resource for the cohesion of our society. This means that we cannot let ourselves get dragged into the political game of Daesh who wishes to turn the children of one same family against each other.” By his side, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, expressed the “disbelief” of Muslims and assured Catholics of their solidarity, according to AFP. At the end of the day, under high security, a Mass was celebrated before 1,500 people in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, in the presence of François Hollande, political and religious leaders, and many anonymous attendants.

In a press release published on July 28, Anouar Kbibech, president of the French Council for the Muslim Cult (CFCM), called for Muslims to express their “solidarity” and their “compassion.” He even invited “leaders of mosques, imams, and the faithful who so desire to go to Mass” on Sunday, July 31.

Interreligious ceremonies all throughout the country

In response, a note published on July 29 on the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) website invited all the churches in the country to offer a “brotherly welcome” to any Muslims who should come. “This is an occasion to show that Catholics do not take Islam for Islamism, Muslims for jihadists. If the great religions are capable of showing their openness and dialogue, the reciprocal desire to know each other better, then perhaps they will point out a path towards more dialogue in all of society.”

On the same day, which was declared a day of fasting and abstinence by the CEF, Fr. Auguste Moanda, pastor the parish of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, for whom Fr. Humel was an auxiliary, preached in the city’s mosque. At the entry to the Yahia mosque, separated from the Catholic parish by a simple gate, posters read “Mosque in mourning.” Le Figaro reported that before the Friday prayer, early in the afternoon, “the priest addressed a very large audience, among which were several dozens of Christians.” Fr. Moanda “pointed out the risk of amalgam” after the attack was recognized by the Islamic State (ISIS), and claimed that “what we see is not the true Islam. We have to stick together.”

In Toulouse, about 200 Muslims and Catholics marched through the streets on July 29 to show their “solidarity” and express their “sorrow.” In La Rochelle, a march organized by the Islamic cultural organization drew some 200 people, including the mayor and the deputy. In Périgueux, between 70 and 80 people participated in an ecumenical march.

On July 30, interreligious vigils were held throughout the country. According to France Soir, “in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, before the portrait of Fr. Hamel surrounded by bouquets of flowers, Catholic and Muslim faithful listened attentively to the soothing words of Fr. Moanda, who recalled that ‘brotherhood exists between the two religions.’” In Bordeaux, about 300 people celebrated “a time of recollection and prayer” in the church of Notre Dame. Some representatives of the Muslim community, including the imam of the mosque of Bordeaux, Tareq Oubrou, along with a dozen faithful, men, women and children, joined the parishioners.

In the cathedral of Rouen, among the thousand people who came to Mass on Sunday, July 31, were a hundred Muslims in answer to the call from the CFCM. According to France Soir, a poster hung inside the place of worship by a Muslim association which read: “Love for all, hate for none.” In his sermon, Archbishop Lebrun of Rouen thanked the Muslim visitors “in the name of all Christians. You thus maintain that you refuse death and violence in the name of God. As we have heard from your lips that we know are sincere, that is not Islam.”

In Nice, reported La Croix on July 31, the scene of an attack recognized by the Islamic State on July 14 that cost the lives of 84 people, a dozen Muslim religious leaders went to the church of Saint Pierre de l’Ariane. “The death of Fr. Hamel gives us the responsibility and the historic duty to continue his work in peace,” declared Otmane Aissaoui, imam of the Arrahma mosque, to AFP. In all of France, Masses were celebrated in Lens, in Amiens in the north, and in Clermont-Ferrand, located in the center of the country.

Against this “politically correct” unanimity, Colonel Georges Michel recalled on a platform published by Boulevard Voltaire on August 1, that “the Mass, source and summit of the Christian life, is not a worldly reunion, a meeting, a celebration of ‘living together,’ and that despite all the obvious efforts of a post-conciliar clergy to turn it into just that.” The Catholic information website Le Rouge et le Noir denounced as early as July 29 the “ordinary procedures” that “seek to preserve civil peace by rejecting with full force the collective responsibility of Muslims in the massacres committed in the name of Islam.” And it recalled “lack of consideration Muslims have for freedom of cult, and the interdiction that reigns de facto over any conversion of one of their own to Christianity.”

Pope Francis answering questions from journalists on the plane back to Poland.

Pope Francis compares “Islamic violence” to “Catholic violence”

When questioned in the plane on his way back from Poland, Pope Francis exposed his view of the attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam. His statements were published by Le Figaro on August 1, 2016. He declared that he does not like “to talk about Islamic violence, because every day when I look at the papers I see violence here in Italy - someone killing his girlfriend, someone killing his mother-in-law, and another... These are baptized Catholics! These are violent Catholics. If I speak of Islamic violence, I have to speak of Catholic violence (…). One thing is true: I think that in nearly all religions there is always a small fundamentalist group. We have them.”

On the website Nouvelles de France, on August 1, in reaction to these statements, Benoît Dumoulin wrote that Pope Francis “puts domestic violence on the same level as the violence that obeys the injunctions of certain suras of the Koran.” According to the French journalist, this “comes from a profound intellectual confusion” for “never” have “acts of violence received in Catholicism the slightest form of religious legitimacy from a sacred authority or text.” This is “unfortunately not the case in Islam.”

Even before the pope’s declaration, Agrif had noted on its website on July 28, 2016 that Pope Francis “avoided mentioning that Islam is (…) an ideological and religious system, a totalitarian theocracy. He speaks of it only as a religion and repeats that all religions are bearers of peace. But the truth is that this globalization is corroborated neither in the past nor in the present.” And the conclusion: “The cause of terrorism is in Islamism, and the cause of Islamism is in Islam.”

“Daesh has done nothing against the Islamic law”

But “what has to happen” for the Pope to understand “the terrifying situation in which not only the Western world, but the entire universal Church finds herself” wondered Roberto de Mattei on July 28, 2016 in Correspondance européenne. “What makes this situation terrible is the policy of Angelism and false mercy towards Islam and all the enemies of the Church.” The Italian university professor continued: “Of course Catholics must pray for their enemies, but they must also be aware that they have enemies, and must not be content with praying for them: they also have the duty to fight them.”

Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and a man of Moroccan origin, granted an interview to L’Observateur du Maroc et d’Afrique in August 2016. He declared that “when you hear the reactions of Muslims today saying that it was not true Muslims who committed these acts or that that is not Islam, it is like saying that it was not the United States that waged the war in Vietnam because that was not the true Americans.” He insisted on the fact that “Muslims should ask themselves why the Koran can be used so often to justify murderous acts and stop shutting themselves up in a victim posture.” And he rightly recalled that “the Islamic State publishes a review online in English (…) and even in French (…), all of whose articles are filled with references to the Koran, to Hadiths, and to a considerable number of thinkers (…) such as Ibn Taymiyya or Mohammed Ben Abdelwahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi mission.”

His position was confirmed by the Jesuit Father Samir Khalil, a specialist on Islam at the University of St. Joseph in Bayreuth who gives conferences in several pontifical universities. In an interview published online by the Catholic video website EUK Mamie and republished by reinformation.tv on July 21, the priest was categorical: “Daesh, the Islamic State, has done nothing against the Islamic law. They have applied what is found in the Koran or in the life and words of Mohammed.”

“Let Christianity Awake From Its Torpor”

In a press release published on La Porte Latine on July 26, Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, district superior of France for the Society of St. Pius X lamented that “the blame is put on a so-called ‘Islamism’, but it is a smokescreen (…) It is high time our politicians and Catholic authorities put an end to this mortal Angelism that encourages the spread of Islam in our country, for example by favoring the opening of new mosques or so-called ‘Muslim cultural centers.’” And he wondered: “How many more victims will it take for Christianity finally to awake from its torpor?”

(sources:apic/imedia/lefigaro/cef/francesoir/lacroix/bvoltaire/lerougetlenoir
/lagrif/francetvinfo/correspondanceeuropeene/lobservateurdumaroc/reinformation.tv/lpl/ndf - DICI no.339 dated August 5, 2016)

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