The Algerian government has agreed that the beatification Mass for the seven French monks kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine and murdered in 1996 can take place in the Mediterranean coastal city of Oran, its foreign minister has said.
Abdelkader Messahel told France 24 television in an interview that Pope Francis would be welcome for the occasion.
According to the Paris daily Libération, the Pope is considering a one-day trip to preside over the beatification of all 19 religious victims of 1990s Islamist extremist violence in Algeria, among them Oran’s former bishop Pierre Claverie.
Francis recognised them in January as martyrs “killed in hatred of the faith”.
A papal visit would be a sensitive mission but Algeria’s Catholic bishops want the ceremony to take place in Oran to stress the martyrs’ links with the Algerian people and their efforts to promote understanding between Christians and Muslims.
"Algeria has agreed to the beatification of these monks and has signalled this to the Vatican," said Messahel, when asked about the monks’ case. "The beatification will take place in a few months… in Oran."
Asked if the Pope would attend, he said: "Let's see, why not? … we have excellent relations with the Vatican.”
Messahel ruled out any implication of Algeria's security services in the monks' deaths. "Everybody knows in which circumstances they died - the French know it, the Algerians know it," he said. "Cooperation between the Algerian and French judiciaries was total, we worked in total transparency."
An official French inquiry concluded the monks probably died about a month earlier than the 21 May date cited by their Armed Islamic Group (GIA) kidnappers and decapitated after their deaths. It found no evidence for a theory they were accidentally killed by firing from Algerian military helicopters during a raid meant to free them.
PICTURE: Trappist monks are pictured in a scene from the 2011 film "Of Gods and Men," which tells the story of the kidnapping and beheading of seven Trappist monks by a group of Islamic terrorists in 1996. (CNS photo/Sony Pictures Classics)
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