Roseline Hamel and Nassera Kermiche: Beyond sorrow

Below is a transcript of the interview with Roseline Hamel and Nassera Kermiche. It has been translated from French and edited for fluency and readability.

You can watch the full interview, in French, here.

Q: Roseline, what prompted you to reach out to Nassera?

Roseline Hamel: It was a question I asked myself every day. I wondered who could possibly be suffering more than I was. It was a long journey, lasting almost a year, during which I kept asking God that question. All my conversations with Him were like a prayer, but I received no answer.

Then one morning, I turned to God and said: “My God, tell me who could be suffering more than I am.” To me, it did not seem possible.

The following morning, I began thinking about this woman I did not know - this mother, who was a mother just like me. I reversed our roles and tried to put myself in her place. I imagined her pain, her torment and the months of struggle she had endured with her young son, who had allowed himself to be drawn down a path his mother would never have wanted for him.

I imagined the contemptuous looks she must have faced and the cloak of guilt she had to bear as a parent. That was when I realised I had found the person who might be suffering more than I was.

I said to myself: “That’s it. I have found this path back to life, the sense of meaning I have been searching for since the funeral and since returning home.” Then I told myself: “Now, Roseline, you must do something. You must find the way to the house where this mother lives.”

Q: Nassera, what did you feel when Roseline knocked on your door for the first time?

Nassera Kermiche: It was also a long journey, because we first spoke on the telephone. At the beginning, our conversations were very brief. Then, little by little, a genuine dialogue developed between us.

One day, Roseline asked me: “If I come to Saint-Étienne, would you be willing to meet me?” I replied: “Of course. I have been waiting for you for a long time.”

I had been hoping for that meeting for quite some time. I had already tried to meet the religious sisters who had been inside the church when the attack took place, but it had not been possible.

I was therefore very happy to be able to meet Roseline. When she arrived at my door and I opened it, I was so emotional and so happy that no words would come out of my mouth except: “Forgive me, forgive me.” That was all I could say, because I needed her forgiveness.

Q: Roseline, you speak of forgiveness as a journey. Was there a particular moment when you understood or felt that forgiveness was possible?

Roseline Hamel: I had never really thought about the difficulty of forgiveness. Perhaps I had never had reason to. Forgiving is, of course, always difficult, and it depends on the magnitude of the offence.

Until then, I had faced the ordinary difficulties of life. As my daughter would say to me: “Let it go, Mum.” And I would let things go quite easily because I had other things to live for. When you are raising children, you cannot dwell indefinitely on something that has hurt or offended you.

But in the situation that brings us together today, offering forgiveness appeared, in the eyes of society, to be an immense and almost impossible undertaking. Why? Because we do not share the same religion and everything appeared destined to divide us.

That tragic day, that day of deadly violence which we both experienced, should have sown hatred towards this family. But hatred leads to revenge, violence and the destruction of our own humanity.

I do not know whether it was the sacrifice of those lives that meant we received the grace of God not to feel hatred. No member of my family felt it.

Three days before the funeral, the Archbishop of Rouen came to my sister’s home to help us organise it. There were twelve of us in a small flat intended for four people. Before we began, he asked us a question: “Do you feel hatred?”

I wondered why he was asking us that, because hatred had never even crossed my mind. I began wondering whether the other members of my family were afraid to admit it, or whether they did not feel it either.

My youngest daughter then replied in a choked voice: “Father, the suffering is so immense that there is no room for hatred.” It was a strangely wonderful moment—a grace from God that had been granted to us.

Several months later, I watched a report on my daughter’s computer about the young people who were in Kraków for World Youth Day. The priests were asking them to stop singing and dancing, to enter the nearest churches immediately and to pray that hatred would not take root.

I then said to my daughter: “Now I know why we did not feel hatred.” Thousands of young people from every nation had prayed that day so that hatred would not take root. It was therefore hardly surprising that we did not experience it.

My faith had been shattered, but it gradually began to rebuild itself. It was rebuilt along this path of encounter, through the time we spent together, through our conversations and through discovering the little boy Adel had once been—his childhood, his joys, his choices and his difficulties.

Just as my faith had once been shattered and trampled upon, today it is strong. Today, I dare to speak about it.

Q: Nassera, you endured the immense pain of losing your son in such circumstances, but also, I imagine, many other forms of suffering and questioning. What were they?

Nassera Kermiche: In addition to the pain of losing a son in such circumstances, there was guilt, shame and anger.

I constantly asked myself: “Why?” I did not understand what had happened. I could not understand the attack and I had not expected it at all. I was searching for answers, but I had none.

I was angry with society and with all the people from whom I had sought help, but who had not helped me. I was angry with everyone.

I was also ashamed of what had happened, because my son had committed something horrific. And I felt guilty. I told myself: “I am his mother. His father and I raised him. Where did we go wrong? What mistake did we make in his upbringing for our son to become like this?”

All those emotions became intertwined and made the pain even deeper.

Q: Roseline, ten years after his death, what would you like the world to remember about your brother Jacques—not only about his death, but especially about his life and ministry?

Roseline Hamel: I would first like people to remember that his was a life given to others. From early childhood, he wanted to devote his life to God.

People should remember his very simple life, lived with great humility. He was a little like a sparrow, content with very little but giving a great deal.

He could appear somewhat cold at first, particularly when he arrived in a new parish and did not yet know anyone. He was painfully shy. But once people came to know him and confided their difficulties and trials to him, they discovered a different person.

When I visited my brother, parishioners would often tell me: “You know, your brother is someone you have to get to know.” Once he knew people, he became warm. They loved listening to him speak and hearing him offer comfort. The children were also very happy when he taught them catechism.

He constantly had to make an effort to overcome his shyness and open himself to others, but he found the strength to do so. At the end of his seminary studies, the director had even said that Jacques would find it difficult to become a priest because speaking in public was so hard for him.

From the beginning of his priesthood, he would have liked to follow in the footsteps of Charles de Foucauld and become a White Father, but he was told that his health was not strong enough. That caused him considerable pain and deep frustration.

As he grew older, he often spoke to me about the life of Charles de Foucauld. We also talked frequently about the monks of Tibhirine, especially after the film Of Gods and Men was released. My brother was very modest and somewhat private. He never went to the cinema, but when that film came out, he telephoned me to say that he had gone to see it.

Charles de Foucauld, the monks of Tibhirine and the terrorist attacks taking place at the time often featured in our conversations. The human capacity for such malevolent thinking caused him great sorrow.

Q: Nassera, when you meet young people today, what would you like to tell them to help prevent them from being drawn in by messages of violence and hatred?

Nassera Kermiche: I would tell them that social media has certain advantages because it allows them to learn many things, but it also presents dangers. A great deal of content can lead them in the wrong direction.

I would therefore say to them: “Be careful about what you listen to. Talk to your parents about it. Ask them whether what you are hearing is true and whether you are following the right path.”

Young people are sometimes attracted by what is easy: if something is easy, they think it must be good; if it is difficult, they think it must be wrong. And yet, the more difficult path is sometimes the right one.

I would advise them to be careful and to listen to their parents, because parents would never knowingly lead their children towards something dangerous.

It is also important for them to learn the foundations of their religion from childhood. That way, they will be able to recognise people who try to tell them things that are not true and will not allow themselves to be led astray.

Q: You have become “sisters in sorrow.” What are you seeking to build through your friendship and testimony?

Nassera Kermiche: Whenever we give a conference or share our testimony—and also through our book—we try to convey a message of peace and sow seeds of peace throughout the world.

We would like people to understand that wars achieve nothing. They bring only devastation, sadness and bitterness. If we manage to live together in peace on this earth, humanity will be saved. At present, however, we are heading towards destruction.

The wars taking place today are wars over money, politics and power. But we do not need any of that. We simply want to be able to live together in peace.

Roseline Hamel: The message we want to convey through our book and our testimonies is that, against all expectations, it is possible to meet one another beyond pain, beyond an offence, beyond criticism, beyond prejudice and beyond our differences. That is the meaning of our example and our testimony.

Because Nassera and I dared to meet one another, together we rediscovered our inner peace, a new breath of life and a strength of hope that we believed had been lost forever.

I therefore address this message to everyone: let us dare to encounter one another beyond our differences and our prejudices. To encounter God is to encounter the other.

These phrases may sound ordinary, but they carry a precious weight. By daring to reach out to the other—to embrace their differences, their trials and their suffering—our encounters build up humanity, strengthen fraternity and leave no room for hatred, revenge or violence.