Paul Vallely, a prominent papal biographer and academic, urged against calls to canonize Fr. Jacques Hamel in the pages of the New York Times, arguing that lionizing the slain French cleric aides the cause of extremists.
Hamel was killed July 26 when ISIS-aligned knifemen stormed his quiet country church in northern France, slitting his throat as he said Mass.
Vallely was piqued by characterizations of Hamel as a martyr from across the Catholic world and calls to canonize the priest — that is, to make him a saint. He further asserted that referring to Hamel’s death as an “assassination” constituted an unwitting acceptance to the terrorist’s agenda. (RELATED: ISIS Raids French Church, Kills Priest)
“Such calls to canonize the murdered priest are ill advised,” Vallely wrote. “They will only play into the hands of the extremists.”
Vallely admonished against casting the West’s conflict with radical Islam as a clash of civilizations, endorsing Pope Francis’ characterization of the attack as “absurd violence.” The pontiff frequently contextualizes the rising tide of violence in terms of a piecemeal war, spasms of violence precipitated by a failing global economic consensus desperate to preserve viability. (RELATED: Pope Says Terrorism Is ‘Not A Religious War’)
“We must strengthen our defenses against terrorism but we must resist the notion that a fundamental clash of civilizations is the issue,” he wrote. He went to explain that this position, which is political rather than theological, engenders reciprocal violence, a cycle of perpetual retaliations which feeds a narrative ISIS employs to attract recruits.
“Reciprocal talk of martyrdom is unhelpful,” he wrote. “The impulse to canonize Father Hamel, however sincere and well intentioned, feeds the idea of retaliation — our martyr for yours — that gives the jihadists the war of religions they seek.”
Valley also suggested Hamel’s death does not neatly square with the Catholic Church’s definition of martyrdom. Though Hamel was certainly killed “in odium fidei” or “in hatred of the faith,” Vallely argued it was unclear that he acquiesced to death for the faith, the other criteria required for a genuine martyr.
This necessity was stressed by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2006 letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican department which oversees the process of canonization. Citing his predecessor Pope Benedict XIV, he underlined “the voluntary enduring or tolerating of death on account of the Faith of Christ or another act of virtue in reference to God,” as the true definition of martyrdom.
Ross Douthat, another New York Times columnist, had a terse response for Vallely.
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