The bronze statue of Notre-Dame d'Afrique was given to the Church in Algiers in the mid-nineteenth century, and the basilica raised for it on the cliffs above the bay was consecrated in 1872. Behind the sanctuary an inscription asks Our Lady of Africa to pray for us and for the Muslims. Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, placed the missionary society he founded — the Missionaries of Africa, commonly called the White Fathers — under her patronage, and the title travelled with them across the continent. The basilica was restored and reopened in the early twenty-first century.

The inscription in the apse is the shrine's theology in a line: a tiny Christian community in a Muslim land praying for its neighbours rather than against them, in the spirit that Nostra Aetate would later make the Church's common teaching. The title also expresses the Church's hope for a continent of great suffering and great faith, which Ecclesia in Africa entrusts to Mary as the Church there continues its mission.

Algeria (Algiers)

A dark bronze standing Virgin with her hands open and slightly raised, alone, without the Child — a figure of intercession. The basilica that houses her mixes Byzantine and North African architectural forms and looks out over the Mediterranean.

• Notre-Dame d'Afrique
• Our Lady of Africa

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• memorare

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