/…/ which to many reasonable people seems like a pretty good reason to leave Islam- and then of course apostates need protection so they don’t get killed. In your example, if you are a Catholic chaplain to a Catholic community in a Muslim country, we really need a head-severing Christian acting in the name of Christianity by killing imams in order for this to be an apples to apples comparison. And in an apples to apples comparison, I think you’d leave that Muslim-majority country before something much worse than evangelism happens to you
I am not seeing (nor am I aware of) in Europe a move by Muslims to abandon their faith because of the actions of the radicalised. Certainly, there are those who convert to Christianity. What I am seeing, and which I welcome, is outreach on the part of those who are Muslim to express solidarity with Christians by, for example, being present at Mass this weekend. I welcome this inter-religious expression by which they express that they are Muslims who, while remaining Muslim, express that what happened is something which they utterly reject
In the circumstance you propose, I would assuredly not abandon the mission that obedience had given me – that is a terrible thing to actually suggest to any priest. We don’t go to a place because we choose to go there and we don’t leave because we choose to leave…we go and we leave because competent Church authority commands us to go or leave and we, in complete submission to Church authority, comply without question or resistance
I would, in fact, do as the Muslims have done in Europe this weekend in the instance you cite…find a way to publicly express, as a priest, solidarity with Muslims in the face of a heinous act by a fellow Christian that would be deserving of being utterly rejected…committing an atrocity thoroughly un-Christian. Would that put my life in danger? I wouldn’t be surprised. Fundamentalists of ALL varieties take all manner of regrettable actions
This is an article from a couple years back that explores the priest shortage in France, and how 10% of its clergy are brought in from abroad (mostly Africa) for periods of 3, 6, or 9 years. /…/
One other thing this article postulates is that the Catholic Church in France has struggled to properly define itself to the incoming generation of potential priests. Might I suggest this. Rather than saying this is a crisis, young men come join the priesthood without properly thinking it through, what if this was used to more properly define the role and importance of a priest, and of the Catholic Church in an otherwise really secular country? Could something along those lines be potentially workable? /…/. If you could comment on that assumption, that would be most welcome
There is a particular history between France and its former colonies in Africa. Missionaries of years long and not so long past played a role in implanting the faith there even as they did in French speaking North America. In turn, France, by Providence, has become the beneficiary of a missionary activity that will benefit it. This is from without as well as from within. In Europe, for example, the work of the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon is well known. As are the renewal movements in France, which we see at Bec, Mont Saint Michel, Saint Gervais et Protais and in many other places
La laicité is a very important value to France, to its society, and its culture. Given the spectre of history, a culture that is secular has its great significance to the French, for just cause
I don’t find a need for the Church to “redefine” itself. The struggle is for contemporary Europeans to see the Church as making a meaningful contribution to daily life beyond a certain level. I think there is need of a religious re-awakening across Europe but for the spiritual well-being of Europeans much more than for a nationalistic purpose. Classically – and with due regard for the Jewish communities that have been part of our lives for more than two millennia – to be in Europe has been to be in a Christian culture. Mine will be the last generation in which that will be largely true, since the role of Christianity in life and society is much more upon the margin
/…/I think I can assume that beatification is something that takes a few years /…/ Perhaps it’s for the best that questions of beatification and canonization take quite a few years to progress, I’m sure that the people who knew him and loved him are just grieving normally and at this moment they don’t care whether he qualified as a saint or not
It is a process that takes years. It involves an initial investigation at the diocesan level. I would hope that the Archbishop of Rouen would begin the process. Abbé Hamel was born in a very challenging moment in European history and came of age in the era of World War II. A priest for almost 60 years who devoted himself with great dedication to his priesthood and then to be killed
in odium fidei is a case worthy of examination for proposal to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Rouen is well known at the threshold of that Vatican dicastery
I don’t agree with your conclusion. Abbé Hamel was a priest. We’re unique creatures. There is, of course, a human bond that ties us to our presbyterate. We are part of it for decades. The bonds may be profound but they’re not inordinately emotional. I can mourn the passing of a brother priest but I don’t have a profoundly emotional response that is detached from order and right reason as though my grief has overcome me; his archbishop and presbyterate are fully capable of suffering from his loss while dispassionately concluding that there is sufficient reason to ponder initiating an examination to propose a cause for beatification…in the same way Mother Teresa’s Sisters began her cause
