At Mass for slain French priest, cardinal contrasts terrorists’ ‘Moloch’ with Christian hope

July 28, 2016

On the evening of July 27, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois celebrated Mass in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris for the victims of the previous day’s attack at the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray.

Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was brutally murdered during the attack.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois decried “those who drape themselves in the trappings of religion to mask their deadly project, those who want to announce to us a God of death, a Moloch that would welcome the death of the man and that would promise paradise to those who kill in invoking him.”

Hope, he continued, “has a face, the face of Christ giving his life as a sacrifice, that men might have life in abundance.” The cardinal added:

It is this hope, at the heart of the test, which forever bars the path of despair, of vengeance, and of death. It is this hope that animated the ministry of Father Jacques Hamel when he celebrated the Eucharist during which he was savagely executed. It is this hope which supports the Christians from the East when they must flee before persecution, and they choose to leave everything rather than renounce their faith. It is this hope that lives in the heart of hundreds of thousands of young people gathered around Pope Francis in Krakow. It is this same hope which permits us not to succumb to hate when we are taken by torment.

French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls attended the Mass.

 

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Further information:

• Homélie du cardinal André Vingt-Trois – Messe pour les victimes de Saint-Étienne du Rouvray (Archdiocese of Paris)
• Notre Dame Mass commemorates slain priest Jacques Hamel (euronews)
• Assailant of Father Hamel was under police surveillance (CWN, 7/27)