Muslims go to Masses in Europe to show solidarity

 
Imams and practicing Muslims attended Mass in Milan’s Santa Maria in Caravaggio church on Sunday.
In a gesture of solidarity after the gruesome killing of a French priest, hundreds of Muslims on Sunday attended Catholic Masses in churches and cathedrals across France and Italy.

More than 100 Muslims gathered at the towering Gothic cathedral in Rouen, near Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where the 85-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel had his throat slit by two teenage Muslim fanatics Tuesday.

‘‘We are very moved by the presence of our Muslim friends and I believe it is a courageous act that they did by coming to us,’’ Dominique Lebrun, the archbishop of Rouen, said after the service.

Some of the Muslims sat in the front row, across from the altar. Among the parishioners was one of the nuns who was briefly taken hostage at Hamel’s church when he was killed. She joined her fellow Catholics in turning to shake hands or embrace the Muslim churchgoers after the service.

Outside the church, a group of Muslims were applauded when they unfurled a banner: ‘‘Love for all. Hate for none.’’ 

Churchgoer Jacqueline Prevot said the attendance of Muslims was ‘‘a magnificent gesture.’’

‘‘Look at this whole Muslim community that attended Mass,’’ she said. ‘‘I find this very heartwarming. I am confident. I say to myself that this assassination won’t be lost, that it will maybe relaunch us better than politics can do. Maybe we will react in a better way.’’

Many of the Muslims who attended the service in Rouen — including those with the banner — were Ahmadiyya Muslims, a minority sect that differs from mainstream Islam in that it doesn’t regard Mohammed as the final prophet.

Similar interfaith gatherings were repeated elsewhere in France, as well as in neighboring Italy.

At Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Mosque of Paris, said repeatedly that Muslims want to live in peace.

‘‘The situation is serious,’’ Boubakeur told BFMTV. ‘‘Time has come to come together so as not to be divided.’’

In Italy, the secretary general of the country’s Islamic Confederation, Abdullah Cozzolino, spoke from the altar in the Treasure of St. Gennaro chapel next to the Duomo cathedral in Naples. Three imams also attended Mass at the St. Maria Church in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood, donning their traditional dress as they entered the sanctuary and sat down in the front row.

Mohammed ben Mohammed, a member of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, said he called on the faithful in his sermon Friday ‘‘to report anyone who may be intent on damaging society. I am sure that there are those among the faithful who are ready to speak up.’’

Ahmed El Balazi, the imam of the Vobarno mosque in the Lombard province of Brescia, said he did not fear repercussions for speaking out.

‘‘I am not afraid. . . . These people are tainting our religion and it is terrible to know that many people consider all Muslim terrorists. That is not the case,’’ El Balazi said. ‘‘Religion is one thing. Another is the behavior of Muslims who don’t represent us.’’

Italy’s foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni, thanked Italian Muslims for their participation, saying they ‘‘are showing their communities the way of courage against fundamentalism.’’

Like in France, Italy is increasing its supervision of mosques. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told the Senate last week that authorities were scrutinizing mosque financing and working with the Islamic community to ensure that imams study in Italy, preach in Italian, and are aware of Italy’s legal structuring.

The Paris prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, said it has requested that a cousin of one of the two 19-year-olds who slit the priest’s throat be charged with participating in ‘‘a terrorist association with the aim of harming others.’’

In a statement, it said it appeared a 30-year-old Frenchman it identified as Farid K. ‘‘knew very well, if not of the exact place or time, of his cousin’s impending plans for violence.’’

The office added that a Syrian refugee detained after the attack was released Saturday.

On Sunday, residents of Munich mourned the victims of the shooting rampage there in which nine people were killed. Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, vowed that the country won’t give in to fear after a string of violence that also included two attacks claimed by Islamic extremists.

On July 22, an 18-year-old German-Iranian man killed nine people and wounded over 30 others at a McDonald’s restaurant and shopping mall in the city. He then killed himself. There was no suggestion that Islamic extremism played any part in the slayings.

‘‘We will probably never find out what really moved him and pushed him to his inhuman actions,’’ Gauck said at a memorial event in Bavaria’s state Parliament.

In Greece on Sunday, police arrested 26 anarchists who burst into the Greek Orthodox cathedral in the northern city of Thessaloniki and interrupted a Mass, chanting slogans and dropping fliers.

Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki, the city’s archbishop who was officiating at another church, said about 30 people burst into the cathedral of St. Gregory Palamas and, aside from interrupting the Mass, ‘‘destroyed what they could.’’ He did not elaborate.

The cathedral is named after a 14th-century archbishop of Thessaloniki who is revered in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Police said those arrested included 19 women and seven men. Seventeen are Greek.

The anarchists were protesting a police operation Wednesday in the city that evicted anarchists and refugees from three illegally occupied buildings.