Pierre Claverie

**Pierre-Lucien Claverie** (May 8, 1938 - August 1, 1996) was a French Catholic prelate who was a professed member from the Order of Preachers and served as the Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his murder in 1996 by Islamic extremists.

## Backstory

Pierre-Lucien Claverie was born as a French citizen in 1938 in a working-class European part of Algiers known as Bab-el-Oued at the time of French Algeria. Claverie remained in Algeria until his studies were completed, when he travelled to France.

Once in France, he was confronted with protests against the French presence in Algeria and realized the limitations of the French world in which he grew up which he later called "the colonial bubble".

Claverie joined the Dominican Order and started his novitiate at the convent in Lille on 7 December 1958 and made his initial vows the next December.

Meanwhile, the war of independence which started in Algeria in 1954 came to an end in 1962 as he underwent his formation and education. Claverie was ordained to the priesthood in 1965. He returned to Algiers from March 1962 to September 1963 in order to finish his mandated time in the armed forces and worked with chaplains and ran a club for enlisted men; he refused to bear arms.

He chose to return to Algeria in July 1967 to participate in the rebuilding of his new and independent nation. This idea inspired him and the galvanized Claverie learned Arabic and became a noted reference on Islam. From January 1973 to 1981 he ran the Centre des Glycines in Algiers, an institute for the studies of classical Arabic and Islam; the original idea was for the institute to be a place of study for those religious planning to serve in Algeria, but Algerian independence led many Muslims to come the center, eager to study Islamic culture and intent on learning Classical Arabic since the language of colonization had been French and the language of everyday life had been dialectal Arabic.

He was appointed as the Bishop of Oran on 25 May 1981 and was consecrated that October with Cardinal Léon-Etienne Duval granting him his episcopal consecration. He succeeded Henri Antoine Marie Teissier who had been named as the Archbishop of Algiers. Claverie created libraries and rehabilitation centers for the handicapped as well as educational centers for women. In 1981 he applied for Algerian citizenship.

From 1992 onward - after the Algerian Civil War broke out - the small Catholic Church which served foreign workers (for the most part) was threatened. There were those in Europe who advised Church officials to leave the nation so as to remain safe. Claverie refused to do so: even if he was never able to obtain Algerian citizenship he considered himself an Algerian and refused to leave a people to whom his life was linked.

## Events

During the crisis he also refused to remain silent. Once he deemed it to be necessary, he did not hesitate to publicly criticize the two main opposing forces - the Islamic Salvation Front and the Algerian Government.

On 1 August 1996. a few weeks after the assassination of the Trappist monks of Tibhirine, the Bishop was assassinated, along with his driver and friend Mohamed Bouchikhi, when a bomb exploded at the entrance to the bishopric as the two were entering the building just before midnight.

He was returning from a trip to Algiers where he had met with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Hervé de Charette to talk about French residents of Algeria and how best to keep them safe from the conflict.

## Aftermath

Seven people were convicted of the killings and sentenced to death on 23 March 1998 for their involvement in the attack. The Catholic Church of Algeria petitioned to have their death sentences commuted and this was successful. His assassination proved to be a tremendous shock to the French.

The cause for canonization for Claverie - as well as eighteen other religious killed during the war - commenced in Algiers after the diocesan forum was transferred from Oran on 5 July 2006. The official start to the cause came under Pope Benedict XVI on 31 March 2007 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the official edict of "nihil obstat" (nothing against) to the cause thus naming the nineteen as Servants of God.