The 2025 Rosary Pilgrimage, with its record attendance and powerful testimonies, underscored the enduring call to unity and compassion
Newsroom (08/10/2025, Gaudium Press ) The annual Rosary Pilgrimage to Lourdes drew a record 17,000 pilgrims from Oct. 2–4, the largest turnout since the Dominican-led event began in 1908. The gathering, marked by processions, ceremonies, and conferences, brought together diverse groups, including 200 Dominicans, 3,000 young people and children, and 2,700 hospital workers who cared for nearly 1,000 sick and disabled pilgrims.
This year’s pilgrimage stood out for its emphasis on universal brotherhood, led by French Dominican Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algiers, who acquired Algerian nationality in 2023. Cardinal Vesco arrived with a group of approximately 30 Algerian Muslims, a rare and significant presence given Algeria’s complex religious landscape, where Islam is the state religion.
Overcoming Barriers for Brotherhood
“We had to overcome Himalayan difficulties to bring them here,” Cardinal Vesco said during his keynote address, describing the group’s journey as an act of “the audacity of brotherhood.” He underscored the need for discretion in the lives of Christians in Algeria, where they navigate a delicate existence. “It is a special, very complex life that we lead in Algeria as Christians,” he said. “It is a discreet life, but one that is an integral part of the citizenship and life of this country.”
Among the Algerian pilgrims was Khaled Boudaoui, a prostate cancer survivor and marathon runner who has defied a 2012 prognosis giving him just four months to live. Boudaoui, whose story is chronicled in his book Laps of Time (published in France in April), joined Cardinal Vesco in Lourdes. “Khaled is a very dear friend, and he often invited me to join him for a run,” the cardinal shared. “Our Christian hope goes beyond human hopes. Mine is nourished by witnesses in whom I see it alive, as I see it in Khaled.”
A Historic Performance
On Oct. 3, a group of 15 amateur Algerian actors performed a deeply moving play, A Friend of the Last Minute, at the Lourdes sanctuary. The performance, staged on a set depicting the Cistercian monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains, brought to life the tragic story of seven Trappist monks kidnapped and murdered in 1996 during the Algerian Civil War. The monks, whose decapitated heads were found two months after their abduction, are believed to have been killed by the Armed Islamic Group, though the true culprits remain uncertain amid the war’s 200,000 deaths.
“This is the first time that Algerians have written and staged this subject,” Cardinal Vesco noted, acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic in Algeria, where the role of authorities during the incident remains unclear. The play’s title draws from the “spiritual testament” of Father Christian de Chergé, the monastery’s prior, who was beatified in 2018 along with his fellow monks. In his testament, written in 1993, Father de Chergé addressed his potential killer as “the friend of the last minute, who will not have known what you were doing,” expressing his commitment to God and Algeria.
A Model of Universal Brotherhood
Cardinal Vesco highlighted Father de Chergé’s legacy as a model of Christian brotherhood. He recounted a 1993 Christmas Eve encounter when the prior met an armed Islamist leader who had come to the monastery seeking a doctor, shortly after his group killed 12 Croatian Christians nearby. “Father de Chergé spoke to him about the monastery as a house of peace into which he could not enter with weapons,” Cardinal Vesco said. “He told him about the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, and the armed leader ended up apologizing for disturbing.”
The exchange, Cardinal Vesco emphasized, exemplified universal brotherhood. “He had succeeded in creating a relationship of brotherhood despite the tension and danger,” he said. “If we are brothers only to our Christian brothers and sisters, we are not Christians. Christian brotherhood must strive for universal brotherhood, regardless of any affiliation. This transcendence is due to the person of Christ himself, who made us brothers to all our brothers, without setting any limits.”
The 2025 Rosary Pilgrimage, with its record attendance and powerful testimonies, underscored the enduring call to unity and compassion, even in the face of historical wounds and ongoing challenges.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from OSV News
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