Abbé Jacques Hamel: "I Will Be Active Until My Last Breath"

"Have you ever seen a priest in retirement? I will be active until the last breath."

Abbé Jacques Hamel said this as he celebrated his golden anniversary as a priest in 2008. At the age of 86 years, Abbé Hamel was murdered on July 26, 2016 by Mohammedans at the parish church of Saint Etienne de Rouvray at Rouen, just as he celebrated Holy Mass at the altar

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Image: Riposte Catholique

Syria: Christian Dragged From Bus and Shot, Because he Wore a Cross

(Damascus) A Syrian Christian of the Armenian Church was put to death by Islamists on the road to Aleppo. As the news agency Fides reported while Christians were traveling on a bus towards Aleppo,  the bus was stopped by armed Islamists, who had set up a roadblock. The Islamists were scanning the bus, to relieve the passengers relieved  of possessions and looking for potential victims of kidnappings for ransom.  On the 9th of February two priests were  kidnapped in this way. The Armenian Catholic priest Michel Kayyal and the Greek Orthodox priest Maher Mahfouz. Both are still in the hands of Islamist gangs.

As the Islamists in the bus investigated the travelers, they also encountered a Syrian Christians Yohannes an  Armenian, who wore a cross on a necklace. They dragged him out of the bus and shot him at close range. For safety reasons,  as Fides reports, they omitted the messenger service on the publication of his full name in order to protect the family of the victim. As the Armenian Church announced, he is a "martyr", because the Christian was killed in "odium fidei", out of hatred for the Christian faith.

Just recently, a group of Christians to reach Beirut to escape the perilous situation in Syria. Their bus was hit by a rocket in flight. Two Christians, Boutros and his 22 year old fiancée Naraya, who wanted to get married soon, were killed. Islamists then stole everything they could steal in this bus brutally brought to a halt.

The Christian churches in Syria have decided not to pay a ransom for kidnapped Christians. A decision that was made after much consideration, as Fides reported, because Christians do not want to be prisoners of a lucrative Islamist kidnapping industry. If they were to pay, it would just such but inflame.

Instead, call the churches to the international community to take action against the inhumane practice of kidnapping in Syria. The Christians of Syria urge all Christians to support through prayer and spiritual sacrifices. Fides reported that the church tours in Syria, it is agreed that the rescue of the hostages, including the two priests, is to lead a spiritual battle and not as fundraising to collect money  for ransom payments.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Faith

Link to katholisches...

Requiem for a Dynasty

Edit: throughout France yesterday and today, there will be Masses said for the repose of the soul of the Martyr King.  It is being organized by various Monarchist associations.  Louis XVI, who was unjustly slain by revolutionaries on January 21st, 1793, will be in the hearts of many Frenchmen as they keep the candles of restoration burning with hope.

But he said, like a martyr:

« Je meurs innocent de tous les crimes qu'on m'impute. Je pardonne aux auteurs de ma mort, et je prie Dieu que le sang que vous allez répandre ne retombe jamais sur la France. »  

"I am innocent of the crimes imputed to me.  I pardon the authors of my death, and pray to God that the blood you shed will not fall on France's soil." 

It's the Birthday of the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II

Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, born 18 May 1868. Murdered by Bolsheviks 17 Jul 1918. Remains of Nicholas and his family were later identified and interred at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg on 17 Jul 1998


H/t: TA


Long Live the Czar!





H/t: Adam

Hungary: Priest Murdered by Bolsheviks Commemorated

Hungary commemorates the Martyr Father Szales Kiss -- Franciscan executed by the Communists

Hungary is to recall Father Szalez Kiss with a memorial plaque.  The Franciscan was a martyr of the secret of the confessional. The plaque in Sopronköhida is going to be erected where he was executed. Father Kiss was found guilty under false pretenses on 11 December 1946 and condemned to death by a Soviet war tribunal. "There is no one for whom I would break the secret of the confessional," he said during his hearing, before which he was tortured in an inhuman fashion by the Bolsheviks.

Father Kiss was viewed by the Communists as a counterrevolutionary and therefore worthy of death as a reactionary, because he had formed a Christian Democrat youth group in the city of Gyöngyös. As a youth he had partaken in actions against the Soviet occupation, so the Franciscan was found guilty of attempting to plan an armed conspiracy against members of the Red Army.

A Soviet military tribunal condemned him at the end of this trial, which was a pure farce, to death. In his life Father Kiss had fallen into the clutches of a totalitarian regime once before. Between 1942 and 1944 the Gestapo attempted to imprison him in Debrecen, because he hid Jews from deportation and brought them to safety.

Link to katholisches... 

  Text: RV / Giuseppe Nardi 
image: Függetlenseg

Forest Murmurs: Recollection and Douai Martyrs

• Editor: Douai is a place in France where once priests were trained to serve the Catholic population of England. It's important to remember them today, on All Saints. Many of them went to their deaths in service to them and many more there were who died for the Catholic Faith on English soil.
  

Forest Murmurs: Recollection and Douai Martyrs

Photo: from Carmelite Spirituality Blog, here.