[13][18] With local imam Mohammed Karabila, the president of Normandy's regional council of Muslims, Hamel worked since early 2015 on an interfaith committee.

[20] Hamel died when his throat was slit by two Muslim men, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean, both aged nineteen, who both pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

[27][28] It was celebrated by the archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois,[28] and attended by president François Hollande, prime minister Manuel Valls and ministers Jean-Marc Ayrault, Bernard Cazeneuve, Emmanuel Macron and Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, as well as former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, and the Apostolic Nuncio to France, Luigi Ventura.

[3] In August 2016, the Italian arm of Aid to the Church in Need announced it would cover the cost of training 1,000 new priests in countries like Nigeria, Cuba, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India in response to Hamel's murder.

[32] His legacy was also celebrated by French singer-songwriter Vianney Bureau in his song "L'homme et l'âme" which was dedicated to Père Hamel as well as victims of terror attacks throughout France.

[33] On the same day of the murder, public figures like the President of Lombardy, Roberto Maroni, called on Pope Francis to "immediately proclaim him St Jacques".

[3][34][35][8] On 13 August, La Croix reported that archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen said he thought Hamel was a martyr, but the decision to declare him so was the pope's.

[38] Two weeks later Archbishop Lebrun announced in a homily that the Pope had formally waived the five-year waiting period needed before the start of a canonization process, and that he had decided to prepare it without delay.