Pope Francis: Priest Killed By ISIS To Be Lined Up For Sainthood [VIDEO]
In a mass on Wednesday in the Vatican guesthouse, Pope Francis expressed two very poignant statements. One, he said that anyone who kills in the name of God is Satanic, and two, he also declared that the late Rev. Jacques Hamel, who was killed in an ISIS attack in France last July, would be beatified.
"Killing in the name of God is satanic. I would like it if all religions said this, 'To kill in the name of God is satanic,'" Pope Francis said.
With the late Hamel's beatification, the Pope has all but assured that the murdered priest will become a saint one day.
Conventionally, the Catholic faith entails prospective saints to perform miracles before they are beatified. However, Pope Francis is anything but conventional, building a reputation for jumping over traditional procedural hurdles.
Hamel ultimately met his end during an attack at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in France on July 26. During the incident, two ISIS sympathizers, 19-year-olds Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean stormed into the church and took six people hostage.
Three nuns, and an elderly couple, and Hamel were taken hostage by the assailants.
While police were eventually able to neutralize the two ISIS sympathizers, Kermiche and Petitjean were nonetheless able to murder the priest. According to one of the nuns who was taken hostage, the two teens forced the priest to his knees and, after chanting in Arabic, slit Hamel's throat.
Despite his violent end, however, Pope Francis stated that Hamel never lost faith, and he saw though what exactly was happening in his church on the day of his death.
"In the middle of the difficult moment that he was facing, in the middle of this tragedy that he saw coming, a gentle man, a good man, a man of brotherly love, did not lose the lucidity to accuse and say clearly the name of the assassin. He said very clearly, 'Go away Satan,'" the Pontiff stated.
During the end of his sermon, Pope Francis reiterated the bloody history of Christian martyrs over the years, stating that throughout the world, there are numerous men and women of the faith who were "murdered, tortured, imprisoned, have their throats slit because they do not deny Jesus Christ."
