Pope Leo XIV on Monday visited the community of Augustinian Missionary Sisters in the Bab El Oued neighborhood of Algiers and honored the memory of two Spanish religious who were shot dead 32 years ago. The sisters had gone to a chapel to attend Sunday Mass.<\/p>\n
Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso, 45, was the first woman to die. As she was about to enter St. Joseph’s Chapel, the residence of a small community of French nuns, she was shot three times in the head.<\/p>\n
Augustinian Sister Caridad \u00c1lvarez Mart\u00edn, 61, who accompanied Sister Esther to the chapel, was also shot. A native of Burgos, Spain, she died a few hours later in the emergency department of the Ain Naia military hospital, where she had been taken by ambulance.<\/p>\n
Doctors spent three hours trying to save his life, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Sister Caridad, as she was known in religious life, suffered three cardiac arrests and hemorrhages, with one bullet lodged in her brain and another in her neck, causing her death on the operating table.<\/p>\n
The murder of Esther and Caridad was not an isolated incident; Rather, it occurred in the context of increasing violence against religious workers. A few months earlier, in May 1994, two other missionaries were killed.<\/p>\n
A year earlier, the armed Islamic group had announced it would kill all foreigners.<\/p>\n
Political crisis in Algeria during the 1990s led to the Algerian Civil War, which killed 100,000 to 200,000 people.<\/p>\n
Sister Mar\u00eda Jes\u00fas Rodr\u00edguez, who was serving as provincial superior of the Augustinian Missionaries at the time, told the Pontifical Mission Societies that because of this increased threat Algerian bishops had requested that religious communities ensure that “no one remains in Algeria unless they do so with complete freedom and make this decision on an individual level.”<\/p>\n
In October 1994, Rodr\u00edguez traveled to Algiers and engaged 12 nuns living there in a process of discussion about the steps they should take.<\/p>\n
Mass for the Augustinian nuns. | Credit: Augustinian Missionaries Archive\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Over several days, accompanied by the then Archbishop of Algiers, Henri Teissier, the nuns underwent a process of personal and communal conscience.<\/p>\n
The issue was clear: should they stay or go? Both options were “legitimate”, but the decision involved an obvious risk. According to Rodr\u00edguez, the danger was threefold: the sisters could be killed “for being foreigners, for being Christians, and simply for being there.” <\/p>\n
On October 7, 1994, each sister independently expressed her decision. They all decided to stay. He commended his choice to God during the Eucharist. “We felt more free after making this decision,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
‘No one takes away our life from us, because we have already given it up.’<\/h2>\n
“The question ‘And what if something happens to you?’ They always appeared during meals, to which the sisters would reply: ‘If something happens to us, no one can take our lives from us, because we have already left them,'” recalled Rodriguez, who lived in Algiers for a few weeks and was there when Esther and Caridad were murdered. Both of them died on World Mission Sunday.<\/p>\n
![\"cloudy](\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/ewtn\/image\/upload\/c_fill,w_3840,h_2745,g_auto\/f_auto\/q_80\/v1\/ewtn-news\/en\/whatsapp-image-2026-04-12-at-8-1776008215_iar9ce.jpg?_a=BAVMn6E70\"\/)
<\/p>\nEsther, (center) and other Augustinian sisters with St. John Paul II. | Credit: Augustinian Missionary Sisters Archive<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The two murdered devout women were among 19 Algerian martyrs who were beatified by Pope Francis in 2018.<\/p>\n
After her martyrdom was recognized, her family and fellow sisters were able to return to Bab el Oued in 2018. Among them was Ana Maria Guante, the current superior general of the Augustinian Missionaries.<\/p>\n
“After a very long time, we were able to return home, and in the chapel we celebrated the first Eucharist after her martyrdom. I get emotional when I remember it, because it was a place made sacred by the lives of the sisters; one could say that the walls also evoked her presence, because it was there that she prayed, understood and wept over people’s suffering and the feeling (of her own powerlessness),” she told the Pontifical Mission Societies.<\/p>\n
Currently, the Augustinian Missionary Sisters have transformed the house into a center of welcome and friendship for Algerian women and children.<\/p>\n
“We help these children experience peace; that it is possible to live together regardless of our cultures or religious traditions: that God makes us brothers and sisters through goodness, through love, and through our ability to help each other get back on our feet,” she explained.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo visited the community in 2009 when he served as a former member of the Augustinians.<\/p>\n