Pierre Claverie

Biography

Pierre Claverie was born a French citizen in May 8, 1938 in a working class part of Algiers called Bab-el-Oued. His family had been in Algeria for four generations. He grew up in a nurturing family, Catholic but not particularly pious. At the age of 11 he joined a group of boy scouts under the guidance of the Dominicans.

After passing the bachelor's degree, Claverie went to Grenoble, France, to pursue his college education. There he was confronted with protests against the French presence in Algeria. He then realized the limitations of the French world in which he grew up, which he later called "the colonial bubble".

Vocation

Claverie joined the religious order of the Dominicans, and started his noviciate at the monastery of Lille in 1958. He went on to pursue his studies at Le Saulchoir, a Dominican institute near Paris. Meanwhile, the war of independence, which started in Algeria in 1954, came to an end in 1962. Claverie was ordained a priest in 1965.

Claverie chose to return to Algeria in 1967, not out of nostalgia, but to participate in the rebuilding of the newly independent country. Galvanized by this idea, he learned Arabic and became an authority on Islam. From 1973 to 1981 in Algiers, he ran the Centre des Glycines, an institute for the study of Arabic and Islam, originally designed for those religious planning to serve in Algeria. However, after Algeria became independent, many Muslims came to the center. They were eager to know their culture better and especially intent on learning Arabic since the language of colonization had been French.

Claverie was a man of dialogue, and he participated in numerous meetings between Christians and Muslims, but he was at times critical of formal inter-religious conferences, which he felt remained too much on the surface of things. He was appointed bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oran on May 21, 1981 and was consecrated in October of the same year by Cardinal Léon-Etienne Duval, taking over from Henri Antoine Marie Teissier, who was named archbishop of Algiers.

He had such an excellent knowledge of Islam that people of Oran called him "the bishop of the Muslims", a title that must have pleased him, since dreamed of establishing true dialogue among all believers, whether they were Muslims, Christians or of other faiths.

From 1992 onward, after the Algerian Civil War broke out, the small Catholic Church, which served mainly foreign workers was threatened. Many in Europe advised the Church people to leave the country. Claverie was firmly opposed to doing so: even if he was never able to obtain Algerian citizenship, he considered himself Algerian and refused to leave a people to whom his destiny was inextricably linked. During the crisis, he also refused to keep quiet. When he deemed it necessary, he did not hesitate to publicly criticize the two main opposing forces, the integrist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the Algerian government.

Death and legacy

On August 1, 1996, he was assassinated along with his young driver and friend, Mohamed Bouchikhi, by the explosion of a bomb, that destroyed the entrance to the bishopric as they were entering the building shortly before midnight. Claverie was coming back from a trip to Algiers where he had met with the French Minister of Foreign affairs to talk about the security of the French residents of Algeria. Seven people were convicted of the killings and sentenced to death on March 23, 1998 for their involvement in the attack. The Catholic Church of Algeria petitioned successfully to have the death penalty commuted. A process of beatification for Claverie and the 18 religious who lost their lives during the crisis of the 1990s in Algeria is under way.

Pierre & Mohamed is a play by the Dominican Adrien Candiard. It is based on texts by Pierre Claverie, and was produced by Francesco Agnello for the Festival d'Avignon in 2011.

Writings

Texts and messages by Pierre Claverie