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Blessed Caridad Álvarez Martín (1933–1994) was a Spanish Augustinian Missionary Sister who gave more than thirty years of humble service to the elderly and the poor in Algiers. Open to God's will and deeply attached to the people who had welcomed her, she remained in Algeria during the civil war and was shot on 23 October 1994 while going to Mass with Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso. Recognized as a martyr among the Martyrs of Algeria, she was beatified on 8 December 2018.
María de la Caridad Álvarez Martín was born on 9 May 1933 at Santa Cruz de la Salceda in the province of Burgos, Spain, the daughter of Constantino Martín and Sotera Martín. In 1955 she entered the Congregation of the Augustinian Missionary Sisters. Sent to Algeria amid the troubles of the independence struggle, she pronounced her perpetual vows there on 3 May 1960.
Delicate health obliged her to return for a time to Spain. Once restored, she went back to Algeria, by then an independent nation, and remained more than thirty years. She belonged to a small community of three sisters at Bab El Oued in Algiers, where she kept the house and devoted herself especially to the elderly and the poor. Known for her open and welcoming character, she lived among her Muslim neighbors as a simple Christian presence of charity.
When the Algerian civil war erupted in the 1990s and foreigners were threatened, she did not hesitate to stay beside the people who had received her and whom she loved deeply. She expressed her interior disposition in these words: "I am open to whatever God and my superiors will want of me. Mary remained open to the will of God; it probably cost her. In the present moment I want to keep this attitude before God." She had already received threats shortly before the attack that would claim her life.
On Sunday, 23 October 1994, while on the way to Mass at the chapel of Saint Joseph of the Little Sisters of Jesus, she was shot as she rang the sisters' doorbell. Struck by a bullet in the skull and another in the neck, she died a few hours later in the military hospital to which she had been taken. Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso, who was with her, was killed instantly. Algerian authorities attributed the crime to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
Caridad Álvarez Martín is numbered among the nineteen Catholic religious killed in Algeria between 1994 and 1996. On 27 January 2018 Pope Francis recognized her martyrdom; she was proclaimed Blessed on 8 December 2018, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, at Oran together with the other Martyrs of Algeria.
May Blessed Caridad obtain for us the grace of remaining open to God's will and of faithful love for the poor even in danger.
Sources: Wikidata Wikipedia Causes of Saints Live web brief for Caridad Álvarez Martín; also known as María de la Caridad Álvarez Martín; feast 23 October; died 1994; Q48760956 Also listed Wikidata
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