Father Jean-Pierre Schumacher, one of the two monks who survived the 1996 massacre at the Abbey of Tibhirine in Algeria, died on November 21 at the age of 97.
Schumacher died in Morocco, where he resided at a Trappist monastery in Midelt, on November 21, the feast of Christ the King.
The deceased monk was serving as the night watchman of the Abbey of Tibhirine on March 27, 1996, when members of the Armed Islamic Group kidnapped and later beheaded seven of his brothers.
The kidnappers, who entered the abbey through the basement, did not pass through the entrance door where Schumacher was stationed that night. The only other survivor of the community, Father Amédée Noto, died in 2008.
The seven martyred monks of his community were beatified on December 8, 2018, along with 12 other Christians killed during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s. Schumacher was present at their beatification at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in Oran.
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The story of the Tibhirine monks was also dramatized in the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
Pope Francis greeted Schumacher and kissed his hand during his apostolic visit to Morocco in March 2019.
Schumacher was born in Lorraine, France, in 1924. After Germany took de facto control of Alsace-Lorraine during World War II, he was forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht but was never sent to the front due to a medical diagnosis of tuberculosis.
He joined a seminary run by the Marist Fathers after the war and was ordained a priest in 1953. A few years later, he joined a Trappist monastery in Brittany, France.
Schumacher was sent to Algeria to join the Abbey of Tibhirine in 1964 at the request of the Archbishop of Algiers. He had been part of the community for 30 years when his brothers were martyred.
After the massacre, Schumacher re-established the Monastery of Our Lady of the Atlas in Morocco with Father Noto.
The monk stated in a 2011 interview that he prayed continually for the Muslim extremists who killed the other members of his community, noting that his community's prior, Father Christian, had forgiven his assassins before his martyrdom.
"We must forgive. God calls us to love one another," Schumacher said.