Rabat, 23 November, 2021 / 9:20 pm (ACI Africa).
Catholic monk Jean-Pierre Schumacher was left to tell of the ill-famed 1996 massacre at the Algerian monastery of Tibhirine in which seven of his confreres were brutally killed.
But as the world celebrated the Solemnity of Christ the King of the universe on Sunday, November 21, the “last of the companions of the martyrs of Tibhirine”, as Br. Jean-Pierre was referred to, also passed on.
Reporting the death of the monk on Monday, November 22, Agenzia Fides wrote, “The last survivor of Tibhirine has left this world. His heart stopped on the morning of Sunday, November 21, the feast of Christ the King of the Universe, in the monastery of Notre-Dame de l’Atlas, located in Midelt, on the slopes of the Moroccan Atlas, the last Trappist strongholds in North Africa.”
The information service of Propaganda Fide reported that Br. Jean-Pierre would have turned 98 next February. He had moved as a monk to Algeria in 1967.
Superior Christian de Chergé and the other six monk confreres of Br. Jean-Pierre were kidnapped on the night between 26 and 27 March 1996, in the country that was devastated by civil war.