Certainly, Mgr Jean-Paul Vesco knows Algeria intimately, where he has lived for two decades. Certainly, he has been bishop there for almost ten years, in Oran, where he has often been presented as the heir of Mgr Pierre Claverie (assassinated in 1996). Certainly, his incessant advocacy in favor of fraternity brings him closer, spiritually, to Pope Francis. And yet: according to this Dominican approaching 60 years old, his appointment at the end of December as archbishop of Algiers – the most important of the four dioceses of Algeria, where he will be installed this Friday, February 11 – was not going to “not at all self”.
It is true that the book in which he invited the Catholic Church, at the beginning of 2015, to change the discipline on the divorced and remarried (1) had not only earned him friendships at the Vatican. And then this talkative and warm man is a native of Lyon. However, on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, seeing a Frenchman access official functions is not easy – although his predecessor Mgr Paul Desfarges was also French. “French in Algeria, and head of Church in a Muslim country: these two elements place me on what Pierre Claverie called a dividing line”underlines Mgr Vesco, who does not deny the difficulties this creates.
“A people who felt abused”
The new archbishop of Algiers feels it well: towards Algeria, he is committed “for life”. “I will probably stay here until I die, like my predecessors”he confides, claiming this lineage.
Apart from his date of birth, a week before the Evian Accords of March 1962, the personal history of this former business lawyer who joined the Dominicans in 1995 did not predestine him to share the destiny of the Algerian people. If he is sometimes tempted to cut short the endless debates which take place in his adopted country on the memory of colonization – “Let’s move on!” » –, he is convinced that such an attitude would be counterproductive.
“Hear the discomfort” of Algeria
He dares to make a comparison with child crime in the Church. “I live among a people who felt abused by France, and who seem to retain the scars of a defeat even though they have won their independence. This cannot be resolved overnight, it requires all patience, and above all a lot of understanding and love. » Without being fooled by certain attempts at exploitation, Mgr Vesco wishes to “hear this discomfort”, as the universal Church tries to understand today, in a completely different register, that of victims of sexual assault by clerics.
The one who prefers to be called “Brother Jean-Paul” rather than “Monsignor” has long cultivated closeness with those around him. Friendship, even, on which he published an essay in 2017 (2). But the evangelical imperative of fraternity, above all, takes on in his eyes a form of” emergency “. “Fraternity cannot be decreed, it must be lived”, he declares with one of these formulas with which he punctuates his speeches. He specifies that he has “horror of this right-thinking fraternity” that Christians should “love everyone »: for him, it is better “start from where we are”.
Beyond major projects
And where he is, Bishop Vesco, it is in an almost 100% Muslim country. “We, Christians, weigh almost nothing here, and our existence is constantly threatened. If fraternity can occur, it is only against a backdrop of prevention: this makes it all the more precious! »
In Algiers, some of Mgr Vesco’s tasks promise to be difficult, notably that of unifying fragile Christian communities far from each other. The Dominican proved, in Oran, that he knew how to take on heavy challenges, such as the restoration of the Santa Cruz sanctuary (2014-2018) or the organization of the beatification of the 19 martyrs of Algeria (end of 2018).
But of his nine years as bishop of Oran, it is not these “major projects” that Mgr Vesco remembers above all. What he keeps in mind when he arrives in Algiers are the last three years, paralyzed both by the pandemic and by the popular Hirak demonstrations (since 2019), during which he lived in the middle of of the faithful of his diocese. A “slice of human life” of an unexpected density, which he hopes to taste again in the Algerian capital.
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The Church of Algeria
The Church of Algeria includes four dioceses: Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Laghouat-Ghardaïa – one of the largest dioceses in the world, which covers part of the Sahara. It is subject to the presidential order of February 28, 2006, which regulates the practice of non-Muslim worship.
The diocese of Algiers has 31 priests and around fifty nuns and monks.
Among the changes of recent years figures the arrival of new faithful, students and sub-Saharan migrants.
On December 8, 2018, Mgr Pierre Claverie and the 18 other religious murdered during the Black Decade were declared blessed at the Sanctuary of Santa Cruz, in Oran.
(1) All true love is indissolubleEd. du Cerf, 112 p., €9.90.
(2) FriendshipEd. Bayard, 150 p., €14.90.