In April 2026, Pope Leo XIV, deep in a public feud with President Trump over the Iran war, made his first trip to Africa. He chose Algeria: the birthplace of Augustine, the spiritual founder of his order. Algeria is demanding reparations from France for 132 years of colonial rule and 1.5 million dead. It’s parliament declared French colonization a "state crime" just four months before Leo landed.

Before visiting with any Catholics, Leo laid a wreath at an anticolonial martyrs' monument, removed his shoes in one of the world's largest mosques, condemned "neocolonial tendencies" to the diplomatic corps, and honored 19 Catholic martyrs who stayed to serve Algerian Muslims through a civil war that killed 200,000. 

The right-wing press logged every stop as an outrage. The Arab press read it as vindication. And the old-school Algerian left noted that papal forgiveness might be easier for France to accept than a reparations bill.

Matthew reads the visit through Augustine, historical materialism, liberation theology, and the testament of Christian de Chergé, prior of Tibhirine, who in 1994 wrote about his immanent martyrdom as the insurgents drew near.

In his final testament, de Chergé wrote:

I well know the contempt with which the Algerians taken as a whole have come to be dismissed. I also know the caricature of Islam that a certain kind of Islamism encourages.

It is too easy to put one’s conscience at rest by identifying this religion with the forms of fundamentalism of its extremists.

Show Notes

New Advent — Church Fathers: Confessions, St. Augustine

NPR — Transcript of Cardinal Robert Prevost's first speech as Pope Leo XIV

Vatican.va — Greeting to Journalists during the Rome–Algiers flight

Vatican.va — Meeting with the Authorities, Civil Society and the Diplomatic Corps, Djamaa el Djazair Conference Cnter

Vatican.va — Visit to the Great Mosque of Algiers

Vatican.va — Meeting with the Algerian Catholic Community, Basilica of Our Lady of Africa

Al Jazeera — Algeria declares France's colonial rule a crime in new law

France 24 — French presidential hopeful Macron cealls colonisation a 'crime against humanity'

OCSO — Testament of Christian de Chergé

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