The evening prayer of Sant'Egidio was enriched last night, May 15, by the presence and preaching of Msgr. Henri Teissier, who is the archbishop emeritus of Algiers.
The archbishop, recalling his long connection with the Community, retraced the stages of the evangelization of Algeria, where he spent no less than 75 years of his life, and recalled his commitment to friendship and dialogue with "our Muslim friends."
Msgr. Teissier said, "I chose a text about a mission (Acts 12:24-13:5) because we celebrated it in December when, as you know, there was the beatification of 19 martyrs in Algeria. The current bishops chose to do this beatification in Algeria to remember not only the Christian martyrs but also those who were victims of the crisis in the country such as the hundred imams who were responsible for the mosques and who did not accept to support, through their words, the point of view of the extremists. He also added "every day, we work with Algerians who come to church and Caritas. In this latter place, there was a meeting 15 days ago. There were 1,000 Muslims and 50 Christians; afterward, there was a day of reflection on Caritas and there were about 100 of those individuals who have the responsibilities: 80 to 90 Muslims who work with us at Caritas and about 10 Christians."
"There are not many Christians in Algeria. In the beatification, we were able to remember the Christians who were victims because of the Muslim extremists. We were also able to recall that we need to be friends and be together with Muslims for this celebration. We remembered all those who were victims of the same violence."
"Hence, I would even like that you, who are working for this mission with other religions and especially with Muslims during the peace prayer meetings, present this task to the Lord. There are hardships but, right now, we also see changes and we have to ask the Lord to bless this progress because we are all children of God."
By looking forward to the next steps of dialogue and prayer for peace, Msgr. Teissier concluded, "we are all children of God and we need to make peace, which is the central thing of our mission."
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