First of all: Yay! I agree! Fr. Hamel is a martyr, and we should ask for his intercession!
Second, this is a nice demonstration for our non-Catholic friends of the difference between the Pope using teaching authority vs. the Pope using infallibility.
In this case, the Pope was giving a homily and giving his opinion as a teacher and bishop: Yes, Fr. Hamel is a martyr. This adds serious weight to the faithful’s idea that he’s a martyr, and clearly shows Pope Francis’ support for getting him canonized and raising him to the altars.
But it’s not a canonization, and it doesn’t even make Fr. Hamel a Venerable. It’s instruction of the faithful, but it’s not an infallible declaration. Good Catholics can disagree about it. It could be factually wrong or factually right; we don’t know for sure yet.
So there you go.
The other thing that it demonstrates is that, even when we are not totally sure of someone’s sainthood, it’s still a good and recommended thing to pray for his intercession. For one thing, that’s how we determine whether God does actually favor this person’s prayers as a saint in Heaven’s would be favored; and for another thing, we can have confidence in asking for help from all the “cloud of witnesses,” both the faithful departed and the angels. God is never going to penalize us for asking, even if we ask the “wrong person” by accident; so we may as well ask.
Martyrs of San Bernardino, pray for us!
Father Jacques Hamel of Rouvray, pray for us!
