Algiers, Algeria, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:01 am
Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are "models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow."
The Algerian martyrs will be beatified Dec. 8 at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in Oran.
"The beatification of our brothers and sisters is a grace for our Church," Archbishop Desfarges wrote in a November pastoral letter.
He urged 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."