Nineteen members of the Catholic Church in Algeria were
murdered in a two-year period, from 1994 to 1996. The
majority of them were French religious men and women who
had spent their entire lives serving the population of this
Muslim country. Their desire was to build bridges in a context
of heavy religious polarisation. Fifteen years after their tragic
deaths, the echo of their lives of service is spreading through
various media around the world: film, DVDs, books published
in various languages. By opening a cause of beatification of
these 19 religious men and women, the Catholic Church purports
to show that this kind of testimony goes beyond the boundaries
of the Church, reaching even people who seem to be far
from religious concerns. The success of the Testament of
Cistercian Fr. Christian de Chergé, the subject of the film of
Xavier Beauvois, Of Gods and men, was an unexpected event.
Citation:Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, vol 38, no 1, pp 61-74
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