From FNC:
Funeral Mass for murdered French priest: attackers were ‘Satan’
ROUEN, France – The archbishop of Rouen, leading Tuesday’s solemn funeral Mass for an elderly priest slain a week ago by two extremists, said the Rev. Jacques Hamel tried to push away his attackers with his feet, saying “go away, Satan,” remarks that underscored the horror of the murder at the altar that touched a chord throughout France.
Hundreds of priests and bishops filled the sumptuous Rouen cathedral along with many hundreds more people, including Muslims who have joined in the grieving since the murder of the 85-year-old priest, slashed by his attackers while celebrating morning Mass.
Hamel’s grisly murder sent shockwaves that went beyond his humble work as a small-town parish priest, touching other faiths and all of France. It came less than two weeks after 84 people were killed in an attack by a hurtling truck in Nice on a crowd of Bastille Day revelers.
“Evil is a mystery. It reaches heights of horror that take us out of the human,” Archbishop Dominique Lebrun said during the two-hour Mass.
“Isn’t that what you wanted to say, Jacques, with your last words, when you fell to the ground? After you were struck by the knife, you tried to push away your assailants with your feet and said, ‘Go away, Satan.’ You repeated it, ‘Go away, Satan.”‘
[…]
It’s coming, friends. Ask God to show His mercy and stop the wave before it comes to you.
Vade retro satana
I hope somebody tells Pope Francis about this.
Somehow I don’t think he was merely speaking figuratively. My heart aches for the poor man, having to suffer such a hideous death, but find consolation in the knowledge that he is praying for us all.
A true martyr for the Faith.
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I have just been forced to use my Pilgrim’s Staff in defensive combat against a Muslim, keen no doubt to impose the evil Sharia upon me contrary to the Divine Law. Nobody was hurt.
The time of persecutions and Martyrs has, for the Grace of our Souls, returned to our midst.
I see Hoover, above, beat me to the punch re. prayer “Vade retro, satana”! Let us all make the powerful prayers inscribed on the Jubilee Medal of St. Benedict our own, in addition to this one. “Vade retro, satana; Crux Sacra sit mihi Lux! Numquam draco sit mihi dux” has been a mainstay of my children’s bedtime prayers, right between the Angel of God and the St. Michael prayer. We need them now more than ever!
I don’t think Fr. Hamel meant to call his attackers Satan, but rather he was directly addressing Satan who had taken possession of the attackers’ souls. It is a cry of mercy for the persons committing this grave sin who did not know what they were doing. To his death, he loved his attackers, as Christ has loved those who crucified him.
Will these last words have a negative impact on being declared a martyr? It was said by Jimmy Atkins that he can’t be declared martyr yet because the Church requires that one must also accept their death, not just die for hatred of the faith.
JabbaPapa- Prayers for you and for France. I assist at an Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest oratory, and many of our priests are French. Unfortunately, I think America is soon to see the kind of attacks which France is seeing.
Prayers also for Pope Francis, and all bishops, that they may see the danger that Islam itself poses, and fight back like men.
Considering how many martyrs, from Roman times onward, have had their last words be advice to their persecutors to quit persecuting them, and considering how many of the martyr kings and lords were fighting in battles until shortly before their martyrdoms, it does not seem that a strictly passive “acceptance of death” would be the actual criterion of martyrdom. It’s more a “turn the other cheek” thing, and that can apparently include vigorous physical and rhetorical dissuasion.
So yeah, I find myself wanting to read the actual book with the actual sainthood criteria. I sense a certain amount of simplification in Mr. Akin’s presentation, which is natural in a short article but which is not going to be exactly the same thing as real life.
Mabye he was speaking figuratively. Mabye he realised, at the moment of his martyrdom, that Islam is a vehicle of the evil one and is being used by him to dupe its credulous followers into doing grave and terrible evils.
APX, not sure about that. Jimmy Akin, if that’s who you meant, isn’t a final authority anyway. Was Maria Goretti accepting of her death? All I am saying is we are not supposed to speculate about such things.
The good news is that if the Devil thinks it advisable to go using so nasty means against us, then our cause can’t possibly be in as bad a state as we often think it is.
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30
So many of these attacks go unreported in western media. I was not aware of the nun who was set on fire.
For Catholics on this blog and for all Catholics and other Christians who would ponder Father Hamel’s last words, I have something to ask you. Whom do YOU say was in that Arabian cave with Mohammed? It called itself “Gabriel” (“God announces”) How you answer tells you whether you might as well sleep in this Sunday morning. [Sadly this would see some priests, ministers, and bishops sleeping in as well as laity.]
I believe Father Hamel was recognizing with great clarity the actual founder of this SO-CALLED “abrahamic” religion; actually a socio-political supremacist, totalitarian ideology.