Agios.Mar 14
Father Thomas Georgeon, postulator general of the cause of the martyrs of the Church of Algeria, speaking of the 19 Christians killed in the nineties in Algeria affirms that “they have lived together with love with the little ones in the name of Christ, with respect for the faith of the other.”
Therefore, “paying homage to the 19 Christian martyrs means paying homage to the memory of all those who gave their lives in Algeria in the 1990s.”
The majority of the almost 200,000 people killed in the dark years of Islamist terrorism were mostly ordinary people, but journalists, human rights activists, intellectuals and imams also died.
Today, instead of propitiating a policy of reconciliation marked by the silence of so many names, which instead of propitiating the healing of memory, offers us the risk of leaving them confined to oblivion, the beatification of 19 Christian martyrs who bring a great light even to illuminate the many sufferings experienced by the Algerian people.
“It is an opportunity to rediscover the true meaning of the term “martyr”, who is a witness,” insists Father Thomas. “They did not give their lives for an idea, for a cause, but for Him. They did it with a deep love for the land where the Lord had sent them, Algeria. With evangelical attention and delicacy towards the people, especially towards the smallest and humblest, as well as towards the young people. They did it with respect for the faith of the other and with the desire to understand Islam.”
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Agios.Mar 14
Antonio Martínez Estaún, Postulator general