"My family has lived here for 35 years, we always knew him," a friend of the priest told l’Express newspaper. Other locals described Hamel as a respected member of the small community. During Tuesday's mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, in the suburbs of Rouen, Hamel was filling in for the church's officiating priest, Auguste Moanda-Phuati, who has been the parish priest for the past five years. “In my absence he was the one who officiated in the church,” Moanda-Phuati told RTL. "The Catholic Church can take up no other weapons than prayer and fraternity between men," he said in a statement.

Source: The Local July 26, 2016 13:58 UTC