A visitor to the beatification of the Algerian martyrs earlier this month witnessed an extraordinary event of Christian and Muslim friendship
High above Oran, the second city of Algeria, stands a statue of Our Lady, erected on the Chapel of Santa Cruz after the end of an epidemic of cholera in 1847: Our Lady, protectress of the city. When I last visited the chapel four years ago, it was in ruins. The bishop, Jean-Paul Vesco OP, shared with me his mad dream of restoring the chapel. How could it be possible, I wondered, for such a prominent Christian site be restored with the help of a Muslim government? But on
8 December, for surely the first time in history, more than 100 Muslim officials, representing the civil and religious authorities, came to the restored chapel to celebrate the beatification of 19 Christian martyrs, all members of religious orders, who had died in the violence that engulfed Algeria in the 1990s.
Six hundred relatives of the martyrs and members of their orders were welcomed to Oran by the Algerian Government. Police and soldiers lined the roads to ensure our safety wherever we went. The last time that I stayed with Pierre Claverie OP, one of the martyrs, who served as Bishop of Oran until his murder, he told me that every time he left his house, he was aware that he was at risk of assassination. Whenever he saw a barricade in the road, he thought it might have been put there by terrorists wanting to kill him. This time the barricades on the streets were to protect us.
The next day, the headline of the local newspaper, Le Quotidien d’Oran, read: “A sign of fraternity destined for the whole world.” The Minister of Religious Affairs, Mohamed Aissa, expressed the Government’s “entire satisfaction” with the celebration. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before in a Muslim-majority country, as far as I know.
