Blessed 19 martyrs of Algeria | |
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Priests; Bishop; Religious; Martyrs | |
Born | Various Various places |
Died | 1994 to 1996 Various places (all in Algeria) |
Venerated in | Catholic Church |
Beatified | 8 December 2018, Notre-Dame de Santa Cruz, Oran, Algeria by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu |
Feast | 8 May |
Attributes | |
Patronage |
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The 19 martyrs of Algeria were a group of nineteen individuals slain in Algeria between 1994 and 1996 during the Algerian Civil War. [1] They all were priests or professed religious belonging to religious congregations, including seven Trappist Cistercian monks; one was a bishop. Their nations of origin were France (15), French protectorate of Tunisia (1), Spain (2), and Belgium (1). [2]
Their collective cause for beatification opened on 31 March 2007 titling them all as Servants of God. Pope Francis confirmed their beatification in 2018 and the group was beatified in Oran on 8 December 2018.
The Martyrs of Algeria refers to nineteen individuals slain during the course of the Algerian Civil War from 1994 until the death of the Bishop of Oran, Pierre Claverie in 1996. The death of the Trappist monks from the Atlas monastery remain controversial since there are reports that the regular armed forces or the Armed Islamic Group carried out the killings with the latter having owned up to the executions themselves. [3]
The seven Trappist monks from their Atlas monastery were kidnapped at around 1:15am on 27 March 1996 after 20 armed men stormed the place and took the monks prisoner leaving two other, overlooked monks in separate rooms. The telephone lines had been cut meaning a call to police was impossible for the two hidden monks while an enforced curfew meant the two could not drive to the nearest police station. [1] The seven monks were all beheaded two months later and were discovered though the bodies were not. The funeral for the monks was celebrated at Notre-Dame d'Afrique in Algiers on 2 June and their remains were interred at the Tibhirine convent on 4 June.
The nineteen individuals beatified were:
On 30 May 2016, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the seven Tibhirine monks at a ceremony naming a garden in the square Saint Ambrose in the 6th arrondissement in their honor as Square des Moines Tibhirine. [11] [12] [13]
The first step towards the beatification came on 5 July 2006 when it was decided that the diocesan process of investigation would take place not in Oran but in the capital Algiers. The official beginning of the cause came following this under Pope Benedict XVI on 31 March 2007 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints titled them all as Servants of God and issued the "nihil obstat" to initiate the proceedings. The diocesan process was opened on 5 October 2007 under Henri Teissier and was closed on 9 July 2012 under Ghaleb Moussa Abdalla Bader. The C.C.S. validated this process on 15 February 2013 and received the Positio dossier for assessment in 2016. [14]
On 1 September 2017 the Archbishop of Algiers Paul Jacques Marie Desfarges and the Bishop of Oran Jean-Paul Vesco met with Pope Francis in a private audience to discuss the cause since theologians had approved the cause at that stage. This meant the C.C.S. needed to approve it before it would be taken to Francis for papal approval. The pope encouraged the bishops and encouraged the cause to proceed. [15] Francis approved the cause on 26 January 2018. [16] The Algerian government granted permission in April 2018 for the beatification to be celebrated on national soil after consultation with ecclesial authorities. [17] The beatification was celebrated in Oran on 8 December 2018 with Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu presiding on the pope's behalf.
The postulator for this cause since 11 October 2013 was the Trappist priest Thomas Georgeon. [9]
The 2010 French film drama Of Gods and Men depicts the lives of the seven Trappist monks until their kidnapping.
Médéa is the capital city of Médéa Province, Algeria. It is located roughly 68 km south of Algiers. The present-day city is situated on the site of an ancient Roman military post and has a history dating back to the 10th century. The town is French in character, with a rectangular city plan, red tile-roofed buildings, and beautiful public gardens. The hills surrounding Médéa are covered with vineyards, orchards, and farms that yield abundant grain. Médéa's chief products are wines, irrigation equipment, and various handicrafts.
Charles Eugène, vicomte de Foucauld de Pontbriand,, commonly known as Charles de Foucauld, was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of a number of religious communities inspired by his example, such as the Little Brothers of Jesus.
On the night of 26–27 March 1996, seven monks of the Trappist order from the Our Lady of the Atlas Abbey of Tibhirine near Médéa, Algeria, were kidnapped during the Algerian Civil War. They were held for two months, and found dead in late May 1996. The circumstances of their kidnapping and death remain controversial; the Armed Islamic Group claimed responsibility for both, but in 2009, retired General François Buchwalter reported that the monks were killed by the Algerian army.
Henri Antoine Marie Teissier was a French-Algerian Catholic Bishop of Algiers and Archbishop Emeritus of Algiers.
Jean-Paul Vesco, OP is a French cardinal of the Catholic Church who serves as the Archbishop of Algiers. He has spent most of his clerical career in Algeria and was Bishop of Oran from 2012 to 2021. He is a member of the Dominicans and headed the French Dominicans from 2010 to 2012. He was made a cardinal on 7 December 2024 by Pope Francis.
Pierre-Lucien Claverie was a French Catholic prelate who was a professed member from the Order of Preachers and served as the Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his murder in 1996 by Islamic extremists.
The Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas is a Catholic monastery of Trappists, inaugurated on March 7, 1938, in Tibhirine, close to Médéa, in Algeria.
Francesco Zirano, OFM Conv. was a Roman Catholic priest from Sardinia and a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual. He is recognized as a martyr in the Catholic Church. Born and raised in Sardinia, he became an ordained priest in 1586. When Barbary pirates abducted and enslaved his cousin, Zirano raised funds over the course of several years to pay the ransom for his cousin's freedom. He traveled to Algiers in 1602 and helped four Christian slaves escape to freedom, but soldiers later targeted and imprisoned him. The Grand Council of Algiers sentenced him to death for his role in helping the slaves escape and for being a spy for the city's enemies, but his captors offered to spare his life if he would convert to Islam. He refused, and they executed him by flaying.
Charles-Marie Christian de Chergé, O.C.S.O, was a French Cistercian, one of the seven monks kidnapped from the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas in Tibhirine, Algeria, and believed to have been later killed by Islamists in 1996. He was beatified with eighteen others, the Martyrs of Algeria, on December 9, 2018.
Pierre-Joseph Cassant was a French Roman Catholic priest and professed member of the Trappists. During his novitiate he received the religious name of Marie-Joseph and was known for his strong determination to his studies to fulfil his lifelong wish of being ordained to the priesthood.
The Martyrs of Laos are seventeen Catholic priests and professed religious as well as one lay young man venerated as martyrs killed in Laos between 1954 and 1970 of the First and Second Indochina Wars during a period of anti-religious sentiment under the Pathet Lao Theravada Buddhist-communist political movement.
The Martyrs of Albania were a collective group of 38 individuals killed during the Communist regime in Albania from 1945 until 1974. All were born at various times between 1874 and 1935; the group included Albanians and Italians as well as one German. Each of these individuals, apart from four, were part of the religious life as either priests or religious and served as either missionaries or educators with a great deal spending their educational formation in Italian and Austrian cities.
Romano Bottegal was an Italian religious priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance). Bottegal joined the order in the 1940s and lived as a hermit in Lebanon. He studied in Belluno and Rome before he was ordained as a priest and following this lived in Rome among his peers; he moved to Lebanon to oversee a new project there but was forced to return to Rome after it failed. But he was later granted permission to return there in order to live as a hermit where he remained in seclusion until his death.
Christophe Lebreton OCSO was a French Trappist monk. He was one of seven Trappist monks from the Our Lady of the Atlas Abbey of Tibhirine near Médéa, Algeria who were kidnapped and killed during the Algerian Civil War. He was recognized as a martyr by Pope Francis in January 2018, and proclaimed Blessed on December 8, 2018 in Oran, Algeria, along with the other martyrs of Algeria. His writings, published after his death, reveal his poetry and spiritual depth. The murder of the monks of Tibhirine gained widespread attention in the prize-winning film Of Gods and Men.
Odette Prévost was a French Roman Catholic nun, who was working as a teacher and a librarian when she was killed in Algiers en route to Mass. She is recognized as a martyr and was proclaimed blessed on 8 December 2018.
The Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles is a Catholic religious congregation founded in 1876 in Lyon, France, by Fr Augustin Planque, the first superior general of the Society of African Missions. The sisters were founded to assist with the priests' missions in Africa.
Esther Paniagua Alonso was a Spanish nun, born in Izagre, on June 7, 1949, daughter of Nicasio Paniagua and Dolores Alonso, and member of the congregation of Augustinian missionaries. As a nurse, she was sent to Algeria where she worked in Bab El Oued, in Algiers. She was murdered in Algiers on October 23, 1994 with sister Caridad Álvarez Martín. On January 27, 2018, Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of Esther Paniagua Alonso among the martyrs of Algeria and authorized the signing of the beatification decree. She was proclaimed blessed on December 8, 2018.
Jean-Pierre Schumacher was a French Trappist monk and prior. He was one of the two survivors of the Trappist community of Tibhirine.
Pedro Ortiz de Zárate was an Argentine Catholic priest and Giovanni Antonio Solinas, SJ was an Italian Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus.
The Priory of Our Lady of Atlas is a monastery of Trappist monks in Midelt, Morocco. It is a continuation of the community of the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas after seven monks were killed there during the Algerian civil war.