Hundreds of French Muslims attended Mass today to show solidarity after the church attack


Muslims across France attended Catholic Mass on Sunday morning in an expression of solidarity after a beloved French priest was killed by two men who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State.
"We're very touched," said Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen, where more than 100 Muslims gathered at the local cathedral, just a few miles from the site of the church attack. "It's an important gesture of fraternity," Lebrun added. "They've told us, and I think they're sincere, that it's not Islam which killed Jacques Hamel."
Similar Mass attendance was observed elsewhere in France and Italy, with three Imams attending Mass at St. Maria Church in Rome. Abdullah Cozzolino of Italy's Islamic Confederation spoke at the Treasure of St. Gennaro Chapel in Naples to call for "dialogue, more affirmation of shared values of peace, of solidarity, of love, out of respect for our one God, merciful and compassionate."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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