Pope Leo XIV left Rome at dawn Monday, launching an 11-day, four-nation tour that will open with a gesture of peace in Algeria, his inaugural overseas journey since ascending to the papacy.
The pontiff will touch down in Algiers to honour those who died in the 1954-1962 independence struggle, laying a tribute at the hill-top Martyrs Memorial before talks with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and a formal address to civic and diplomatic leaders.
Workers have spent recent days painting walls, repaving boulevards and filling traffic islands with flowers, signs that residents are treating the arrival of the first Catholic leader ever to set foot in the majority — Muslim nation as a moment of collective celebration.
Jean — Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, said the stop is meant to “build bridges between the Christian and Muslim worlds,” part of a 18,000-kilometre itinerary that next takes Leo to Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, ending 23 April.
The American pope’s schedule blends inter-religious outreach with deeply personal history. On Tuesday he will celebrate Mass in Annaba, ancient Hippo Regius, hometown of the fifth-century theologian whose writings shaped the Augustinian order the pontiff once led as Father Robert Francis Prevost.
Fred Wekesa, rector of Annaba’s Saint Augustine Basilica, said parishioners see the liturgy as “a message of encouragement and solidarity” for a small community still scarred by the 1992-2002 civil war that claimed the lives of 19 religious whose chapel Leo will visit privately after touring both the Great Mosque of Algiers and the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa overlooking the bay.
The visit unfolds amid renewed conflict in the Middle East; on Saturday the pope shouted “Enough to war!” from St Peter’s Basilica, pleading for an end to fighting that has defied recent U. S.–Iran negotiation efforts.
Source: enca
Original author: Estelle.Bronkhorst
