Priest Killed by Islamists To Be Beatified
1st July 2026
Almost ten years ago, a Catholic priest was set upon by Islamists who had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group. Now, as part of a relatively rapid administrative process, Fr. Jacques Hamel looks set to be beatified by the Church he served for many years.
Hamel was murdered on July 26th, 2016, in the Church of Saint-Étienne in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen. His two young killers entered the church during Mass and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, before killing Hamel at the altar. (Another churchgoer was seriously injured.)
In the years since, this still notorious case has prompted pilgrimage to the crime scene, where a once blood-soaked wooden altar, still showing knife-marks, stands beside a desecrated cross.
Whereas there is a standard waiting period for a beatification process, normally at least five years, the Pope has waived this. Instead, the Diocese of Rouen was allowed to commence work on Jacques Hamel’s case significantly earlier, completing this phase in 2019 with an 11,000-page dossier, now under review in Rome.
Vatican News describes the document as comprising more than 100 kilograms of paper, around 10,000 hours of work, 600 transcribed sermons, and interviews with 60 witnesses. Officially already a martyr, this process puts Hamel on the path to beatification.