Jacques Hamel

Who was Jacques Hamel?

Father Jacques Hamel was a parish priest of the Archdiocese of Rouen, in Normandy, who was killed at the altar of his church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray on the morning of July 26, 2016. He was 85 years old and had been a priest for 58 years. Pope Francis called him a martyr less than two months later, and the Church opened his cause for beatification in 2017. He is a Servant of God: the Church is studying his life and death, and has not yet declared him Blessed.

Those who knew him remember an ordinary priest in the best sense of the word. Father Philippe Maheut, presenting his brother priest at the funeral, called him "profoundly good, smiling, humble and discreet," a man whose whole ministry kept him close to the town where he was born.

A life near home

Jacques Hamel was born on November 30, 1930, in Darnétal, an industrial suburb of Rouen. His father, Georges, was a railway mechanic and his mother, Jeanne, a weaver. The account the Archdiocese of Rouen has published, drawn from Jan De Volder's biography Martyr, tells how early he knew his calling. As a small boy he built an altar in the garden shed and said "Mass" in a long robe. By six he was an altar boy, and his sister Roseline remembered that by ten he knew the Latin prayers by heart. At fourteen he entered the seminary.

His studies were interrupted by military service. In November 1954 his company was shipped to Algeria at the start of the war there. He refused to become an officer, telling his sister he did not want to "give men the order to kill other men." One day, driving a jeep through an oasis, his vehicle was ambushed. Every soldier with him was killed, and the soldiers in the jeep behind as well. He alone survived, and he often wondered why.

He was ordained a priest in Rouen Cathedral on June 30, 1958, one of fifteen ordained that year. For the next half century he served working-class parishes around Rouen: as an assistant priest in Petit-Quevilly and then in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, as pastor of Saint-Pierre-lès-Elbeuf from 1975 and of Cléon from 1988, and from 2000 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. He lived simply, with an almost Franciscan dislike of luxury. He sang the liturgy in a fine voice, and the Eucharist was the center of his life as a priest.

He officially retired at 75 but asked to stay on and help in the parish, and he kept saying Mass and filling in for the pastor. "He was old, but always available for everyone," a neighbor told the French press. "He was a good priest."

July 26, 2016

On the morning of Tuesday, July 26, 2016, Father Hamel was celebrating a weekday Mass with a few people when two young men armed with knives entered the church. They had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. They took five people hostage: Father Hamel, two religious sisters and two parishioners. They cut the old priest's throat at the altar. Police shot both attackers soon afterward.

In the middle of the attack, Father Hamel spoke. Pope Francis later drew attention to it: "this gentle man, this good man, this man who strove for brotherhood, did not lose his clarity of thought and clearly said the name of the murderer, he said it very clearly: 'Be gone, Satan!'"

Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen was in Kraków for World Youth Day with young people from his diocese. From there he said that the Church "has no other arms than prayer and fraternity among men," and asked the young people not to give in to violence.

"He is a martyr"

On September 14, 2016, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Pope Francis offered Mass for Father Hamel in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. A photograph of the priest stood on the altar. The Pope said:

In this history, we come to our Fr Jacques: he is part of this chain of martyrs. … He gave his life for us, he gave his life so as not to deny Jesus. He gave his life in the same sacrifice of Jesus on the altar.

And he added words the Church in Rouen took to heart: "we ought to pray to him, because he is a martyr! Martyrs are blessed."

The cause for beatification

Normally the Church waits at least five years after a death before opening a cause. Pope Francis waived that wait. At the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, April 13, 2017, Archbishop Lebrun announced to all the priests and deacons of the diocese that the cause had opened. Father Paul Vigouroux was named postulator.

A martyr's cause asks one question: did this person die in odium fidei, out of hatred for the faith? If the Church answers yes, a martyr can be beatified without the proof of a miracle. The diocesan inquiry heard about fifty witnesses, among them those present at his death, his family, fellow priests and parishioners, and theologians read his sermons and parish bulletin columns. According to the Archdiocese of Rouen, the Roman phase of the cause opened in 2022. As of 2026 the Church has not yet issued a judgment.

The archdiocese still invites anyone with testimony or useful information about him to write to the postulation at the Archbishop's House in Rouen.

Remembering Father Hamel

Father Hamel is buried in the cemetery of Bonsecours, on the heights above Rouen. Each year the diocese keeps the anniversary of his death on July 26. For the tenth anniversary, on July 25 and 26, 2026, Archbishop Lebrun celebrated Mass in the church of Saint-Étienne, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline came from Marseille, and pilgrims prayed at his grave before Vespers in the basilica of Bonsecours.

We may not call him Blessed until the Church does. But we can pray for his cause, and, as Pope Francis urged, we can ask his prayers. Let us ask the Lord, through Father Jacques Hamel, for the gentleness and courage he showed at the altar, for peace between neighbors of different faiths, and for priests who keep their lamps lit to the last hour.