Meeting with Mons. Claude Rault

Christians and Muslims: together we can. October 13 at 17:00: Meeting with Mons. Claude Rault, M. Afr., Bishop of Laghouat (Algeria) on the release of his book The desert is my cathedral. Conference in French. Presenting and moderating the meeting, Father Diego Sarrió Cucarella, M. Afr., Director of Studies of PISAI. Claude Rault was born in Poilley (France) in 1940. After his studies in philosophy at the major seminary of Coutances, he made his religious profession on June 1966 in the Society of Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), after his novitiate in Gap. He studied theology in Ottawa and Lille. He was ordained on June 29, 1968 in Coutances and was later sent to study at the PISAI in Rome (1971-1972). He was appointed to Algeria in 1972 to care for small communities in the south (in the former French Sahara), in Ghardaia, Touggourt and Ouargla. In 1979, he founded, together with Father Christian de Chergé (Prior of the monastery of Tibhirine, assassinated in 1996), the group of Christian-Muslim reflection Ribāṭ al-salām, a group of religious and lay people keen to practise the Christian-Muslim dialogue who meet twice a year in the Abbey of Nôtre Dame de l’Atlas in Tibhirine. Claude Rault was appointed Vicar General of the diocese from 1987 to 1999, the date on which he became Provincial of the White Fathers in Algeria and Tunisia. Appointed Bishop of Laghouat in Algeria on October 26, 2004, he was consecrated on the following 16 December.