Fader Jacques Hamel, den 86-årige präst som
halshöggs framför altaret mitt under mässan, är
en kristen martyr för Europas islamisering och
sammanbrott.
De två jihadisterna Abdel Kermiche och Abdel
Malik Petitjean hade före mordet svuret
kalifatets nyhetsbyrå som "kalifens soldater".
Efter mordet höll de en predikan på arabiska för
den chockade och oförstående församlingen.
varje år i Asien och Afrika är det ännu tämligen
få som får offra livet för tron i Europa.
Men antalet ökar hela tiden.
Sommarens pärlband av jihadistdåd i Tyskland
och Frankrike är tyvärr bara en föraning om
Biskopen av Aleppo hyllar i ett uttalande
fader Jacques, men varnar samtidigt USA
och EU för att fortsätta sponsra allsköns
islamister som också försöker utrota
de kristna i Mellanöstern.
Aleppo – The tragic death of Father Jacques Hamel,
the elderly French priest murdered while he was
saying mass, “belongs to the great history of
Christian martyrdom including the recent martyrs
of the Eastern Churches”.
Therefore “it deserves not to be exploited, certainly not
by persons who until recently for their own interests,
thought to exploit the same jihadists invoked by the
priest’s young terrorist murderers ”.
This is how Georges Abou Khazen OFM, Vicar apostolic of
Aleppo for the local Catholics of Latin rite, views from
the Syrian martyr city yesterday morning’s tragic event
in the church Saint Etienne du Rouvray, not far from Rouen.
“Down through the centuries” says the Franciscan Bishop
conversing with Fides, “for Christians, martyrdom has always
been considered the greatest act of faith.
While they mourned their martyrs, they also celebrated
them as Christians who redeem all of us and save the
world, because they take upon their shoulders suffering
for the sake of the name of Jesus, and doing so they
apply to their contemporaries the redemption brought
by Christ”.
For Bishop Georges this event, so close to the mystery of
salvation, shall not be disfigured by persons feigning
indignation for their own political gain.
“For years” says the Vicar apostolic of Aleppo “ we Bishops
in the Middle East have cautioned those western Powers
which to safeguard their own interests do not hesitate
to support those groups of fanatics which pursue jihadist
ideologies. Now I see all around ferocious reactions which
identify all Islam with these groups blinded by an ideology
of hatred and death which seems to be spreading
everywhere along unknown ways. We must be as harmless
as doves and astute as serpents , as the Gospel teaches.
But astuteness does not consist in letting oneself
be contaminated by the poison of the snake”.
