Robaird O’Cearbhaill
Hong Kong Correspondent
The tragedy of the 1996 massacre of the monks at Algerian Trappist monastery at Tibhirine had one fortunate outcome. Two were spared. One of the two died in 2008 – Fr Jean-Pierre Amadee.
The one remaining monk, Father Jean-Pierre Schumacher, passed away in November 2021 in Morocco at the age of 97. His peaceful departure from life happened 10 minutes after anointing the sick at the beginning of a Mass for the feast of Christ the King, the leading UK Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, reported. Junno Arocho Esteves reported, sourcing the Catholic News Service at Vatican City: “Ten minutes later he gave his soul to the Lord. He left in peace, as he has been all his life,” the statement said.
The seven Trappists abducted from Tibhirine monastery of Our Lady, have been declared Blessed since 2018, together with twelve other martyrs killed from 1993-1996 in Algeria , during the violent conflict between the government and extremist Islamic rebels.
Fr Schumacher survived the 1996 kidnappers because he was outside of the monastery in a porter’s lodge. He had told the Avvenire, “I heard noises. I thought they had come to take medicine, as it had happened before. Then when silence returned, someone knocked on my door. I was a little scared. I opened it. It was (Fr.) Amedee who told me, “They took our brothers away. We are alone, you and I,” he said.
The Trappist monk told Avennire that he always wondered why he and Fr Amadee survived the attack and whether God had considered “me worthy enough to die with his fellow monks.”
The reporter explained the monk “was consoled later after receiving a letter from the abbess of a cloistered (closed) convent in Switzerland who told him that “the Lord wanted them to give their testimony of love with death (while) others are left to continue to transmit the message of love with life.”
“It made me think a lot,” he said. “I don’t know if I really answered that calling. But I have tried to all my monastic life which has lasted for over 50 years.”
Arocho Esteves reported too how “Pope Francis met with Fr. Schumacher and kissed his hands and members of the ecumenical Council of Churches at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rabat.”
(Photo: https://english.almayadeen.net/)
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