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Father Jacques Hamel, Martyr

His throat slit by ISIS terrorists while saying mass
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Oh my God:

Two knife-wielding attackers who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” slit the throat of an 84-year-old priest (one report says he was beheaded) and critically wounded at least one other person during a Tuesday morning terror attack on a Catholic church near the Normandy city of Rouen, officials said.

The terrorists were later shot and killed by police. ISIS’ Amaq news agency said the France attack was carried out by two Islamic State “soldiers,” Reuters reported.

“[ISIS] has declared war on us,” French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday. “We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law — what makes us a democracy.”
The priest, identified by Sky News as Jacques Hamel, was dead at the scene, and another person, possibly a nun, was clinging to life, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

The church is in the French region of Normandy.
“Everyone knew him very well,” Claude-Albert Seguin, 68, said of Hamel. “He was very loved in the community and a kind man.”

The killing Tuesday inside the church, in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, “is obviously a drama for the Catholic community, for the Christian community,” Brandet told reporters.

The church was reportedly on a “hit list” discovered at the residence of a would-be ISIS attacker in April 2015, The Sun reported. Sid Ghlam was believed to be planning “imminent attacks” in France when investigators arrested him. Officials allegedly uncovered an arsenal of weapons and found that Ghlam was talking with someone in Syria who had ordered him to strike specific churches — including the one in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

He was martyred by these Islamists while saying mass. More:

The priest’s throat was slit by two men armed with knives who took five people – Hamel, two nuns and two worshippers – hostage in the church. The two men were later shot by police. Three hostages were freed unharmed but one is in a critical condition.

It is believed, but not yet confirmed, that the critically injured person is an elderly nun.

And get this:

One of the Normandy church murderers was a convicted terrorist who was meant to be living with his parents with an electronic tag on his ankle, according to security sources.

The astonishing revelation – made to the French TV news channel I-Tele – well cause further outrage in a country devastated by constant security failings.

Why in God’s name are convicted terrorists allowed outside of prison?!
What is wrong with the French government?!

There are no words to describe the brutality of men who could do such a thing. If they can strike in a suburban town in Normandy, no place is safe.

I mentioned here the other day that a French friend had bought a gun, and is expecting some sort of civil war. This is why. People will not live with this kind of savagery forever. Father Jacques Hamel, martyr, pray for us, and for France.

Vive la France!

UPDATE:
These tweets from a leading English progressive Catholic and biographer of Pope Francis make evident the moral bankruptcy of (at least some of) the European Catholic left:

They beheaded this elderly priest as he said mass, and shouted, “Allahu akbar!” What the hell do Muslim terrorists have to do to make progressives like Austen Ivereigh and Pope Francis see what’s right in front of their noses?

Here is one prominent Christian — Cardinal Robert Sarah — who doesn’t need to be told:

Translation: “How many dead will it take before European governments understand the situation in which the West finds itself? How many decapitated heads? +RS”

Look, you don’t have to advocate vengeance to recognize that this was Muslim fanatics killing Catholic Christians in the name of Islam. Honest, I do not get why this is so hard for progressive Christians to see and to say out loud. These lies, whether conscious or a matter of self-deception, are positively harmful.

This murder was not “absurd,” as Pope Francis said. This murder happened for a reason. Père Hamel, the martyr, died because he was a Christian priest, and that offended two radical Muslims, who butchered him before the altar of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

If the meaning of this event in suburban Rouen is not clear to Pope Francis and his biographer, their blindness is incurable. From The Guardian:

A witness to the attack has described how the two men forced the 86-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel, to his knees, slit his throat and filmed themselves appearing to preach in Arabic at the altar.

The nun, named as Sister Danielle, was among five hostages who were taken when the men armed with knives reportedly entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, at 9.43am local time on Tuesday during morning prayers.

“Everyone was shouting ‘stop, stop you don’t know what you’re doing’. They forced him to his knees and obviously he wanted to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” Sister Danielle said, adding that she had fled the church while the terrorists cut Hamel’s throat.

Hey, it could have been Swedish Lutherans? Who are we to judge?

 

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