Pierre Claverie

Pierre Lucien Claverie (born May 8, 1938 in Bab El-Oued / Algiers , † August 1, 1996 in Oran ) was a French Dominican and Roman Catholic bishop of Oran . He was killed in a bomb attack during the Algerian civil war . In the Roman Catholic Church he is venerated as a blessed .

Life

Pierre Claverie was born in 1938 in the Bab El-Oued quarter of Algiers to a French family that had lived in Algeria as pieds-noirs for four generations . During his school days, he had no contact with Muslim or Arabic-speaking Algerians and later referred to his childhood experiences as a “colonial soap bubble”. After completing his baccalaureate , he began studying at the University of Grenoble , but then turned to religious life. In 1958 he entered the Lille monastery as a novice of the Dominican Order and was ordained a priest in 1965 . In 1967, after the end of the Algerian War , he returned to his country of birth, which had become independent, at his own request. He learned the Arabic language and became familiar with Islam . In 1973 he took over the management of the Center des Glycines in Algiers, an institute and library for Arabic and Islamic studies that is open to both Christians and Muslims.

On May 25, 1981, Pope John Paul II named Claverie Bishop of Oran to succeed Henri Teissier . The Archbishop of Algiers , Léon-Étienne Cardinal Duval , donated him episcopal ordination on October 2 of the same year. Co- consecrators were the prelate of Tunis , Michel Callens MAfr , and the archbishop of Rabat , Jean Chabbert OFM .

He is considered a pioneer of Christian-Islamic dialogue .

After the outbreak of the Algerian civil war , the Roman Catholic Church in Algeria faced threats. Despite repeated advice from Europe to leave Algeria, Pierre Claverie refused to do so. Although he never had Algerian citizenship, he felt inextricably linked to the country and criticized both the Islamic salvation front and the Algerian government.

When seven Trappist monks were kidnapped from the Notre-Dame de l'Atlas monastery in Tibhirine on the night of March 26-27 , 1996 , later murdered and found beheaded on May 30, Claverie realized that he too was threatened. On August 1, 1996, he and his 21-year-old chauffeur, Mohamed Bouchikhi, an Algerian Muslim, were killed in an assassination attempt when a bomb destroyed the entrance to his episcopal church at the moment when he was about to enter it shortly before midnight. Seven people were sentenced to death on March 23, 1998 for their involvement in this attack.

Pierre & Mohamed

Pierre & Mohamed is a stage work written by the Dominican Adrien Candiard for the Festival d'Avignon 2011. In this one-man play, the author has put the bishop's sermons in dialogue with supposed notes from the diary of his chauffeur Mohamed. The first production was realized by Francesco Agnello, who also accompanied the first actor Jean-Baptiste Germain musically on the Hang (musical instrument) .

Beatification process

On January 26, 2018 , Pope Francis recognized martyrdom as a prerequisite for beatification in the beatification proceedings initiated for Claverie and another 18 religious who were murdered in Algeria between 1994 and 1996 . The monks of Tibhirine are also religious . The beatification by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints , Giovanni Angelo Becciu , took place on December 8, 2018 in the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Santa Cruz in Oran.

literature

• Pierre Claverie: Lettres et messages d'Algérie (Chrétiens en liberté). Karthala, Paris 1996, 291 pages, ISBN 2-86537-657-5 .
• Jean-Jacques Pérennès: Pierre Claverie. Dominican and bishop in Algeria . St. Benno Verlag Leipzig 2014 (Dominican sources and testimonials 17), ISBN 978-3-7462-4106-7 .
• Hadwig Müller: Claverie, Pierre . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church , 3rd edition, ed. v. W. Kasper, vol. 11, Freiburg / Rome / Basel / Vienna 2001, col. 48: ISBN 978-3-451-22011-1 .

Web links

• Entry on Pierre Claverie on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Armand Veilleux: Assassinés là où ils œuvraient. Béatification des martyrs d'Algérie . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , Vol. 2019, No. 116, pp. 33–36, here pp. 33–34 and 36.
2. ^ Armand Veilleux: Assassinés là où ils œuvraient. Béatification des martyrs d'Algérie . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , Vol. 2019, No. 116, pp. 33–36, here p. 36.
3. ↑ "Pierre & Mohamed" en tournée ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Promulgazione di Decreti della Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office , January 27, 2018, accessed January 27, 2018 (Italian). 
5. ↑ Tibhirine monks are recognized as martyrs. Vatican News , January 27, 2018, accessed January 27, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Lettera del Santo Padre all'Inviato Speciale alla Beatificazione dei martiri Mons. Pierre Claverie, OP, Vescovo di Oran, e 18 compagni (religiosi e religious) in Algeria. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, December 5, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 (Italian). 
7. ↑ Omelia del Prefetto della Congregation of Cause of Saints in occasione della Beatificazione dei martiri Mons. Pierre Claverie, OP, Vescovo di Oran, e 18 compagni (religiosi e religious) in Algeria. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, December 8, 2018, accessed December 8, 2018 (Italian). 

predecessor	Office	successor
Henri Teissier	Bishop of Oran 1981–1996	Alphonse Georger