The leaders of the Catholic Church announce the end of the charitable activities of Caritas, considered by the former as an NGO which did not have the authorizations to carry out its activities. The Archbishop of Algiers believes that it is the activities of aid to migrants that have caused these tensions with the State.
According to our information, there was only one meeting between Catholic officials and state representatives. And one observation: the impossibility of reaching an agreement. From this Saturday, October 1, 60 years after its creation, the 50 members of Caritas will stop their activities.
“It is indeed a difficult decision to close a charity service. It is of course a decision that we took at the request of the authorities, but it is we who took it. We did not want to get into a conflict with the authorities at all and therefore we took the decision to close the Caritas service definitively”, explains the Archbishop of Algiers, Jean-Paul Vesco.
The Archbishop of Algiers tried to convince the authorities that Caritas was not an NGO, but the authorities believe the opposite. For Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco, support activities for migrants have also offended the state. “There, it was for us a strong implication that we are going to stop. It is this which is undoubtedly at the origin of the decisions of the authorities. “If Caritas stops, the Archbishop recalls that the charitable activities of the Church in support of the most deprived will continue in another framework within a Church that wants to be “citizen”.
