French Cardinal urges Christians and Muslims to 'work together' after Normandy church attacks

French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran stressed that peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims could defeat the threats of radical terrorism that caused the life of an 85-year-old French Catholic priest, among others.

The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue responded to the extremists' brutal murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel at a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on July 26 by urging Christians to embrace Muslims.

Cardinal Tauran pointed out that the extremists' goal for Fr. Hamel's murder, hailed afterwards by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) terrorist group, was to prove "that peaceful coexistence among Muslims and Christians is impossible."

Therefore, he urged Christians and Muslims that "can – rather, we must – work together and promote religious instruction."

"But we have demonstrated and we believe that we must join forces in the name of God to work together for harmony and unity in a spirit of sincerity and mutual trust," wrote the French cardinal on Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on Aug. 12, as reported by the Catholic Herald.

Fr. Pierre Belhache, who handles relations with the Muslim community in Normandy, shared the cardinal's views when he asserted that the two religious communities "won't let anyone divide us. It is so rich to have these differences but still be together."

The French Muslim and Christian community showed solidarity right after the attack when they gathered together in a mosque in Normandy as well as during a Sunday mass in Rouen.

"We are all Catholics of France," BBC quoted Anouar Kbibech, head of the French Muslim Council (CFCM), as saying.

The Muslim leaders in the region refused to participate in the burial rites for one of the church attackers.

French imam Abdelatif Hmitou also renounced the church attackers as not belonging to the same civilization and humanity as everyone else.

Leading figures of the Islamic faith from across the globe also individually condemned the attacks of ISIS and the Normandy church attack.

Dominique Lebrun, the archbishop of Rouen, accepted the sincerity of the Muslims' gesture of fraternity.

"That it's not Islam which killed Jacques Hamel," the archbishop told BFMTV.