Middle East – Africa

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Midnight Mass in Beruit

December 25, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Beirut, Lebanon, Dec 25, 2018 / 08:00 am (CNA).- On the evening before Christmas, the city of Beirut was decked with lights and trees and nativity scenes. A festive glow covered everything as people made their way to the various Catholic and Christian … […]

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Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified

December 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Oran, Algeria, Dec 10, 2018 / 03:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

AFP reported that some 1,200 people attended the Dec. 8 ceremony at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Cross. Among them were relatives and friends of the beatified. The beatification was celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Blessed Claverie and his companions were killed during the Algerian Civil War by Islamists.

Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers noted the “thousands of victims of the Algerian civil war,” calling them anonymous heroes.

“We did not want a beatification between Christians, because these brothers and sisters died among tens and tens of thousands of Algerian” Muslims, he stated.

Algeria’s population is almost entirely Muslim.

Relatives of those beatified were received by Muslim dignitaries at the Ibn Badis Grand Mosque, where Mostapha Jaber, an imam, said, “We Muslims associate this event with much joy.”

“These Christian martyrs killed during this national tragedy … had a good mission — (they were) determined to spread peace.”

The pope had authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to recognize the martyrdoms in January.

Blessed Claverie was a French Algerian, and Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his Aug. 1, 1996 martyrdom.

His companions are: Brother Henri Vergès, Sister Paul-Hélène Saint-Raymond, Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso, Sister Caridad Álvarez Martín, Fr. Jean Chevillard, Fr. Alain Dieulangard, Fr. Charles Deckers, Fr. Christian Chessel, Sister Angèle-Marie Littlejohn, Sister Bibiane Leclercq, Sister Odette Prévost, Brother Luc Dochier, Brother Christian de Chergé, Brother Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Brother Bruno Lemarchand, Brother Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville.

The best known of Bl. Claverie’s companions are the seven monks of Tibhirine, who were kidnapped from their Trappist priory in March 1996. They were kept as a bartering chip to procure the release of several imprisoned members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, and were killed in May. Their story was dramatized in the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

After the death of the monks of Tibhirine, Claverie knew his life was in serious danger. A bomb exploded at the entrance of his chancery Aug. 1, 1996, killing him and an aide, Mohamed Bouchikhi.

In a pastoral letter last month, Bishop Desfarges called the beatification “a grace for our Church,” urging the local Church “to love as they did in the freedom that the Holy Spirit gives” because the martyrs “go before us on the path of witness that our Church is called to give in this land of Algeria, which from the first century has been watered with the blood of the martyrs.”

Archbishop Desfarges said that the martyrs’ lives “were given to God and to the people to whom love had united them.” He encouraged the faithful to pray to them “asking for the grace of fidelity for our Church in its mission.”

Finally, the Archbishop of Algiers invited the faithful to live this “time of witnessing” through interreligious dialogue.

“The witness of the Catholic Church is not a witness against another’s religion, but a witness that the love of Christ poured out in our hearts calls us to live a love for everyone, without distinction, even enemies,” he concluded.

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CAR bishops establish day of prayer for victims of violence

November 28, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Bangui, Central African Republic, Nov 29, 2018 / 12:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of the Central African Republic have set aside a day of mourning and a day of prayer for victims of ongoing violence in the country.

December 1 will be a day of mourning. The date is significant, as it marks the anniversary of the Central African Republic’s establishment as a republic after French colonial rule.

In a communique, the bishops urged “men and women of good will to refrain from celebrating 1 December as a sign of mourning,” according to Vatican News.

On the following day, the first Sunday of Advent, prayers will be held in memory of the victims of violence in the country. The bishops said all donations collected on this Sunday will be given to support victims and their families.

The prayer and mourning initiative was announced at a Nov. 26 press conference in Bangui.

Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the archbishop of Bangui and president of the CAR bishops’ conference, said the appeal is a response to ongoing violence and an attempt to raise awareness about the situation in the country.

“Following the unfortunate and repetitive events that have plunged Central African families into mourning since 2012, the most recent of which are those of Bangui, Bambari, Batangafo and Alindao, the Central African Bishops’ Conference is holding its extraordinary session on 24 November 2018 and hereby issues this communiqué,” he said, according to Vatican News.

The Central African Republic has suffered violence since December 2012, when several bands of mainly Muslim rebel groups formed an alliance, taking the name Seleka, and seized power.

In reaction to the Seleka’s attacks, some Central Africans formed self-defense groups called anti-balaka. Some of these groups, mainly composed of Christians, began attacking Muslims out of revenge, and the conflict took on a sectarian character.

According to Reuters, the violence has displaced more than 1 million people and brought the country’s food security to a level four in the international food security classification system, one step away from “famine.” The U.N. humanitarian chief for CAR, Najat Rochdi, said nearly 3 million of the country’s 4.6 million population are in need of aid. More than half of them are in desperate need.

“If the situation is remaining the same and people are not going back to work their fields… it means that, yes, in a very few years we will have a famine in Central African Republic,” Rochidi said.

Recent acts of violence include the torching of several Christian internal displacement camps. At least 42 people – many of whom were refugees – died in a Nov.15 attack Thursday on the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Alindao.

At the press conference on Monday, Nzapalainga pointed to the Constitution of the Central African Republic, which states, “The human person is sacred and inviolable. All public officials, all organizations, have an absolute obligation to respect and protect it.”

 

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