As Father Pierre Claverie and 18 other martyrs were Beatified on Saturday, December 8, in Algeria, Pope Francis sent a message to the Algerian people.

In a message to the people of Algeria Pope Francis urged them to go forward in healing the wounds of the past and nurturing a culture of encounter and coexistence.

The 19 martyrs were killed between 1994 and 1996 during the civil war in Algeria between the government and Islamist groups. All were religious and they all shared a love of Christ and a desire to serve the Muslim people of the nation.

The Pope’s message was read after the Beatification Mass presided over in the city of Oran by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

Pope Francis described the celebration as a joyful one for the Church in Algeria and said he joins the community in giving thanks “for these lives given totally for the love of God, the country and all its inhabitants”.

Encounter and coexistence
May this celebration, he said, “help heal the wounds of the past and to create a new dynamic of encounter and coexistence in the following of our Blessed”.

The Pope thanked the political authorities of Algeria for having “made possible the celebration on Algerian soil of the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and of his eighteen martyr companions” and he expressed affection and closeness to the Algerian people “who experienced great suffering during the social crisis of which they were victims in the last years of the last century”.

He said that while he celebrates “the fidelity of these martyrs to God's plan for peace" he also prays for the “sons and daughters of Algeria who, like the martyrs, became victims of the same violence for having lived with respect for others and fidelity towards their duties as believers and citizens.

“It is also for them that we raise our prayer and express our grateful homage,” he said.

St. Augustine of Hippo
The Catholic Church in Algeria, the Pope continued, considers itself the heir, together with the whole Algerian nation, of the great message of love spread by one of the many spiritual teachers of the land, Saint Augustine of Hippo.

The Algerian Church, he said, “wishes to serve the same message in these times when all peoples are seeking to advance their aspiration to live together in peace”.

“By beatifying our nineteen brothers and sisters, Pope Francis said, the Church wishes to bear witness to her desire to continue to work for dialogue, harmony and friendship”.

We believe, he concluded, that this unprecedented event in the country “will draw in the Algerian sky a great sign of brotherhood addressed to the whole world”.

Pope announces that the Church has 19 new Blesseds

After reciting the Angelus along with thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square on Saturday, December 8, Pope Francis announced that 19 martyrs were beatified in Algeria.

“Today, in the Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in Oran, Algeria, Bishop Pierre Claverie and 18 men and women religious, killed in hatred of the faith, were beatified.”

With these words, Pope Francis announced to thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square on Saturday the beatification of 19 martyrs. He called them “martyrs of our time” and “faithful proclaimers of the Gospel, and heroic witnesses of Christian love”. Pope Francis said their “courageous witness is a source of hope” for Catholics in Algeria, “a seed for dialogue”.

The Pope said he hopes that their Beatification will be “an incentive for everyone to build together a world of brotherhood and solidarity”.

And as has become customary, Pope Francis asked the faithful present in the square to give a round of applause for the newly beatified martyrs.