{"id":6719,"date":"2006-07-23T00:08:26","date_gmt":"2006-07-23T00:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/a-shepherd-in-algeria.html"},"modified":"2006-07-23T00:08:26","modified_gmt":"2006-07-23T00:08:26","slug":"a-shepherd-in-algeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/a-shepherd-in-algeria.html","title":{"rendered":"A Shepherd in Algeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NYTimes profile of the Roman Catholic bishop of Algeria…the land of St. Augustine, where Christianity has just about disappeared.<\/a><\/p>\n

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When he began his work as a parish priest in 1958, there were more than 700 churches in the country. But even then Christianity was only an implant.<\/p>\n

Within months of Algeria\u2019s independence from France in 1962, 900,000 Christians had fled to Europe\u2019s shores. Most of those who remained left after the government nationalized land and businesses in 1964, and all but a few thousand of the rest were forced out when Islamic radicals started killing foreigners in the 1990\u2019s. Nineteen Catholic clergy members were killed, including seven Trappist monks. Only their heads have been found.<\/p>\n

There are only about 20 churches left in Algeria, and they are mostly empty. The rest have been converted into mosques or cultural centers or have been abandoned. All of the church\u2019s schools and hospitals were nationalized in the 1970\u2019s. Recently, the church\u2019s activities have been further circumscribed by a new law against proselytizing that leaves many of the church\u2019s charitable activities vulnerable to politically motivated interpretation.<\/p>\n

BUT the archbishop is not a man to show despair. He maintains that the Roman Catholic clergy has a role to play in Algeria and elsewhere in the Muslim world even if there is no indigenous church left to maintain. Most of the Catholics in the country today are temporary residents from sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A thread from a few months ago on the Monks of Tibhirine.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NYTimes profile of the Roman Catholic bishop of Algeria…the land of St. Augustine, where Christianity has just about disappeared. When he began his work as a parish priest in 1958, there were more than 700 churches in the country. But even then Christianity was only an implant. Within months of Algeria\u2019s independence from France…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA Shepherd in Algeria - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/a-shepherd-in-algeria.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Shepherd in Algeria - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A NYTimes profile of the Roman Catholic bishop of Algeria…the land of St. Augustine, where Christianity has just about disappeared. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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