The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oran (, ) is a Roman Catholic diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Algiers in Algeria.
History
The current diocese of Oran was created on 25 July 1866, with the diocese of Constantine, by dismemberment of the single diocese of Algiers (established in 1838). It is limited to the east by the Archdiocese of Algiers, to the south by the Diocese of Laghouat, to the west by the border of Morocco; it covers nearly . It is believed that its current population is around 9.8 million inhabitants spread over 9 departments, of which 1,500 are Catholic. At the time of Saint Augustine, about thirty bishoprics existed on the current extent of the diocese; from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
Oran, occupied by the Spaniards between 1509 and 1792, depended on the Archbishop of Toledo despite attempts to create a local diocese there (at the time of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, there was a conflict with a Franciscan, Luis Guillen, who had obtained a papal bull recognizing him as bishop of Oran).Esprit Fléchier, Histoire du cardinal Ximenez, Nîmes 1827, tomo primo, pp. 331-336.Alfred Salinas, Oran la Joyeuse, mémoires franco-andalouses d'une ville d'Algérie, L'Harmattan, 2004, p.94.Gregorio Sánchez Doncel, Presencia de España en Orán (1509-1792), Toledo, 1991, p. 457..
After the massive departure of the French at the independence of Algeria in 1962, then of foreign workers at the beginning of the Algerian Civil War, the Catholic community only has a few hundred members nowadays. Pierre Claverie, bishop of Oran between 1981-1996, was murdered together with a Muslim assistant by a bomb that had been planted at the door of the bishopric.
Special churches The seat of the bishop is Cathédrale Sainte-Marie in Oran.
Ordinaries Bishops of Oran
Jean-Baptiste-Irénée Callot ( – ) ( – ), appointed Bishop of Digne, France ( – ), appointed Bishop of La Rochelle and Saintes, France ( – ), appointed Bishop of Perpignan-Elne, France ( – ) ( – ) ( – ) ( – ), appointed Bishop of Périgueux (-Sarlat), France ( – ) Bertrand Lacaste ( – ) Henri Teissier ( – ), appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Alger Pierre Lucien Claverie, OP ( – ) Alphonse Georger ( – ) Jean-Paul Vesco, OP ( – , appointed Archbishop of Alger and is current administrator of Oran)
References
External links
catholic-hierarchy.org GCatholic.org