By Jules Gomes, Middle East Forum.
Pope Leo XIV has rebuffed efforts by freedom of religion advocates to focus his attention on the state-sanctioned Islamist persecution of Christians during his trip to Algeria on April 13-14, 2026.
The pontiff, who began a ten-day Africa tour with a visit to Algeria, honored Marxist and Muslim revolutionaries at the Martyrs’ Memorial, but did not visit the Tibhirine monastery on the thirtieth anniversary of the Islamist kidnapping and beheading of seven Trappist monks there.
French commentators underscored the irony of the papal genuflection at the Memorial, noting that Algeria’s war of independence resulted in the massacres and expulsion of one million pieds-noirs—mostly Algerian-born French Catholics.
On the eve of Leo’s flight to Algiers, the European Centre for Law and Justice spotlighted the oppression of Christians in Algeria, stating: “According to the Algerian Constitution, Islam is the state religion, leading the former president of the High Islamic Council to declare that ‘an Algerian can only be Muslim’ (2021).”
The pontiff ignored pleas urging him to intercede for religious freedom. “Algeria imposes a single identity, both Arab and Muslim, to the detriment of minorities, particularly Jews, Ahmadis, and Christians. In 2020, freedom of conscience was removed from the Constitution,” the petition, signed by political leaders, human rights experts, philosophers, jurists, writers, and exiled Algerians, warned.