Martyring

The killing of Father Jacques Hamel while conducting morning mass in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray is appalling at every level.  Except one.

It is appalling because of the even-greater-than-usual contrast between the savagery of the attackers and the fragility of the attacked.  It is appalling because of the religious framework of the attackers pitted against the religious framework of the attacked.  It is appalling because it crosses so many boundaries that are rarely crossed outside conventional war (and then quite rarely) - the young against the elderly, the cruel against the kind, the neighbour against the neighbour, the strong against the weak - I could go on.

In one respect this killing was, however, immediately given a different character.  Where the Press and the politicians used the words killed or murdered, some Catholics started to use the word martyred.  

Not only so, but the line of succession of being violently killed at the Eucharist or Mass has been traced through through Oscar Romero (1980) and Thomas Becket (1170), two famous martyrs.

Now there is a considerable theological gulf between Father Hamel, French Catholic Priest, and me, an English Baptist Protestant.  As to that gulf, God is for both of us the judge.  Nevertheless I like the sheer subversion of 'yet another killing in mainland Europe' being transformed by the word martyr.  For the deaths of all Christians who die because they are Christians are a testimonial of their crucified Lord.   "Can you be baptised with the baptism I will be baptised with?" the Lord enquired of his disciple.

To put it another way, very many Islamic leaders will be rushing out disclaimers that the extremists (yet again) in no way represent Mohammed, God or Islam or them.  Meanwhile, all the current Bishop of Rome needs to say about Jacques Hamel is that on that wretched morning he represented the story of the Lord and His love   Three men died, but only one of them died successfully.  Two of them wasted their lives and their deaths.  One I guess hadn't wasted his life, and certainly didn't waste his death.