The Small Catholic Community of Mauritania and Our Lady of Nuakchot

Nuakchot · Mauritania · Catholic faith in the desert

Mauritania is one of the countries where the Catholic presence is most fragile: less than 5,000 Catholics in a country of 4.5 million, almost all Muslims. The small community of Nuakchot venerates the Virgin Mary as its protector in the desert.

Mauritania: The hardest country for Catholics · Global Voices

Mauritania, together with Niger, is the country where the Catholic presence is most fragile in all of West Africa. The population is almost 100% Muslim, and the small Catholic community consists mainly of expatriates (diplomats, co-workers, NGO workers) and a handful of local converts that keep their faith underground.

The Espirian missionaries established the mission of Nuakchot in the years following Mauritania's independence (1960). The mission chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is the only place of Catholic veneration in the capital.

Our Lady of Nuakchot

The advocation of Our Lady of Nuakchot is a local advocation, without official recognition of the Holy See, but living in the heart of the small Mauritanian Catholic community. The Virgin Mary is invoked as a protector of Christians in a country where religious freedom is very limited.

A minority testimony

The Catholic community of Mauritania is a testimony to what it means to be Christian in a country where Islam is the religion of the State and the conversion of Islam to Christianity is socially prohibited. The Mauritanian faithful pray in silence, celebrate the Eucharist in small groups and maintain their Marian devotion as an act of spiritual resistance.