Stories

By Ines San Martin

ALGIERS, Algeria (OSV News) – As Pope Leo XIV begins his visit to Algeria, one stop on the first day of his 11-day trip to Africa carries a deeply personal and missionary significance: the Augustinian Missionary Sisters’ house in the city of Bab El Oued- in the outskirts of Algiers, where two Spanish nuns were killed in 1994.

The pope’s visit honors Blessed Esther Paniagua Alonso and Blessed Caridad Álvarez Martín, among the 19 martyrs of Algeria beatified in Beatification of the Martyrs of Algeria. Both women were shot while on their way to Mass on World Mission Sunday that year, at the height of Algeria’s civil conflict.

Their decision to remain in the country despite growing danger was not taken lightly.

“The fundamental question was: what am I going to do personally — stay or leave temporarily?” recalled Sister María Jesús Rodríguez, then provincial superior of the Augustinian Missionary Sisters, who was present in Algeria at the time. 

According to Sister María Jesús, the bishops of Algeria had asked all religious to freely discern whether to remain, as violence escalated against foreigners and Christians. “Both options were legitimate and very good,” she said, noting that the threat was “triple: for being foreigners, for being Christians and simply for being there.” 

In early October 1994, the sisters gathered with Archbishop of Algiers Henri Teissier, who was leading the local Church during the country’s civil conflict, for several days of prayer and discernment. Their work included hospitals, Red Crescent nurseries and outreach to women.

“It’s not that we were necessary — we simply wanted to be there and accompany life in that moment of difficulty,” Sister María Jesús said. 

On Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, each sister made her decision. “One by one, they said they would stay,” she said, recalling how the commitment was offered during the Eucharist. “We felt freer after having made that decision.” 

“If something happens to us, no one takes our life from us, because we have already given it,” the sisters would say among themselves. 

Days later, that offering became reality.

As two sisters left first for Mass — following security advice to travel in pairs — Rodríguez and another nun followed behind. “We heard two gunshots,” she recalled. “People were telling us to go away, and we entered a nearby house. We could hear crying.” 

At first, they assumed another Christian had been attacked. Then came the devastating confirmation: “Esther and Caridad.” 

Today, the Church that these women died serving remains small but resilient.

“I have found a Church that is very small, but deeply alive,” said Diego Sarrió Cucarella, a Spanish-born bishop serving in Algeria. “It is not defined by numbers or visibility, but by the quality of its presence — a Church of relationships, of friendship, of service and shared daily life.” 

For Bishop Sarrió, the memory of the martyrs continues to shape that presence.

“They did not die for having positioned themselves ‘against’ anyone,” he said. “They died ‘alongside’ others, for having remained among a people to whom they were deeply united.” 

He added that their witness is remembered not as a painful or ideological memory, but as “a call to fidelity and self-giving.” 

The pope’s visit, he said, is being lived “above all as a grace.”

Pope Leo XIV attends a meeting with the Algerian community at the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, Algeria, April 13, 2026. (OSV News photo/Guglielmo Mangiapane, Reuters)

“For a small Church like ours, it is a very strong sign of communion and closeness,” Bishop Sarrió said to the Spanish office of The Pontifical Mission Societies. “It reminds us that we are not alone, that we are part of a much larger body.” 

More than structural change, he said, the visit is expected to bear “an interior fruit,” fostering trust, encounter and peace in a predominantly Muslim society.

It is precisely this quiet, relational witness that continues today in Bab El Oued, where the Augustinian sisters have transformed their former residence into a center serving children and women — a living sign that, even in the shadow of martyrdom, the Church’s mission endures.

Sister Brigitte Zawadi of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of the many religious who filled the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, Algeria, waiting for Pope Leo XIV’s visit with the Algerian community April 13, 2026. (OSV News photo/Courtney Mares)