Slain French Priest to be Named a Saint?

The French priest who was murdered by Islamic terrorist could be named a saint by the Catholic Church.

France was shocked when radical Muslims brutally murdered 84-year-old Father Jacquies Hamelwas at his own church.

Pope Francis is praising him for his faith and martyrdom.

"Father Jacques Hamel has been slaughtered in the Cross, just as he celebrated the sacrifice of the Cross of Christ. A good man, meek, a brother, who was always trying to make peace, was assassinated as if it were a criminal," he said in a recent sermon.

Francis also took the time to recognize the thousands of other Christians who have sacrificed their lives for the gospel.

"Today there are Christians murdered, tortured, imprisoned, slaughtered because they do not deny Jesus Christ. In this story, we come to our Père Jacques: he is part of this chain of martyrs. Christians who today suffer - either in prison or the death or torture - not to deny Jesus Christ, they show precisely the cruelty of this persecution."

The process to name Hamel a saint has begun.

"The death of Father Jacques Hamel is the ultimate testimony of his faith in Jesus, he affirmed to the end. The holiness of recognition procedure... cannot begin until five years after the death of the person," he Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, explained in a statement.

" Formally, it is the bishop of the person's place of death to initiate the procedure. There is a local phase with a careful survey of the life and death of the person. Then the case is sent to Rome where [it is] studied before the Pope's decision," he added.