Ten years after the killing of Fr Jacques Hamel shocked France and the world, the Catholic Church in France is preparing to honour his memory with prayer and remembrance. Source: OSV News.
The 86-year-old French priest was attacked on July 26, 2016, while celebrating Mass in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, in Normandy. After slitting Fr Hamel’s throat, the attackers, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, seriously injured one of the worshippers they took hostage. They were shot dead by police as they tried to leave the church.
On July 26, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille and president of the French bishops’ conference, will celebrate a televised Mass in the church where the elderly priest was murdered, alongside Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen, who knew Fr Hamel personally.
The priest’s 86-year-old sister, Roseline Hamel, will attend the religious and civil commemorative ceremonies on July 25 and 26 at the site of his death.
Before Mass, there will be a silent march to the church from the rectory.
Ten years ago, Ms Hamel was spending her vacation with her children at this rectory when her brother left that morning to celebrate the daily Mass and never returned. She will walk that short distance to the church again with her children and grandchildren, surrounded by the crowd.
“Being surrounded like this on this anniversary is a great comfort to me,” she said. “It gives me great strength.”
Overwhelmed with grief since that tragedy, Ms Hamel has never ceased, despite her suffering, to bear witness to her brother’s kindness and to her own desire to forgive.
She took steps to meet Nassera Kermiche, the mother of one of the attackers. She even formed a deep friendship with her, and in 2025 the two women published together a book from both perspectives, Sisters in Sorrow.
In late August, Ms Hamel will travel to Rome for the release of her book in Italian. There, she will meet Pope Leo XIV, and hopes to speak with him about her brother’s cause for beatification.
In 2019, the Archbishop of Rouen delivered the diocesan dossier of the beatification cause to Rome.
FULL STORY
A decade after Fr Jacques Hamel’s murder, his sister gives powerful witness to forgiveness (By Caroline de Sury, OSV News)
