PARIS (AsiaNews): Thousands Christians were joined by their Muslim brothers and sisters at a gathering held at Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray on July 26 in memory of Father Jacques Hamel, who was murdered while celebrating Mass by two men who proclaimed their act as a victory for the Islamic State.
 
The tribute to the 85-year-old priest on the first anniversary of his death began at 9.00am with a Mass broadcast on national television celebrated by Archbishop Dominique Lebrun, from Rouen, in the very church where Father Hamel had spilled his blood.

PARIS (SE): In taking a couple of rather pointed digs at the two candidates for the run off of the presidential election in France, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the Conference of the Bishops of France isolated respect for the weakest members of society, migration and loyalty as citizens of Europe as the three main principles that people should seek to protect in casting their vote on May 7.

SEOUL (UCAN): An official delegation representing the French Catholic Bishops’ Conference visited South Korea from October 14 to 23 to pay homage to various holy places, including Galmaemot and Saenamteo, where nine French missionaries were beheaded during the 1866 Byeongin Persecution.

A total of 66 people, including Jean-Pierre Cardinal Ricard, from Bordeaux, and five other bishops made the trip to strengthen ongoing relations between the local Korean and French Churches.

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis met privately at the Vatican with French president, Francois Hollande, who said he felt it necessary to thank the pope in person for his words after the slaying of a French priest and other terrorist attacks in France.

Hollande arrived in Rome on August 17 and went directly to the French national church, St. Louis, to visit a chapel which was set up as a place of prayer for the victims of terrorism.

Paris (SE): “The world is at war,” Pope Francis said on his flight from Rome to Krakow en route to World Youth Day after hearing of the death of Father Jaques Hamel as he was celebrating Mass in the village of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, France, on July 26.

HONG KONG (SE): “We draw near in prayer to the suffering and recovering people of Nice, France. The darkness of violence cannot dim the light of humanity’s highest aspirations to live in peace,” the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, said in a message to the suffering people of Nice on July 15, the day after Bastille celebrations were marred by the mass murder of 84 people by a crazed truck driver.

VATICAN CITY (CNS): The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, criticised the cover page cartoon of a special commemorative edition of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, on the first anniversary of the deadly attacks on the publication’s offices on Paris.

PARIS (CNS): “Have these tragic events provoked some genuine awakening and have we offered perspectives for the society of tomorrow by learning lessons from the past?” the French Bishops’ Conference asked in a January 6 statement, as France commemorated the deadly 7 January 2015, attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.