Catholics in Algeria share how the Pope’s Apostolic Journey has been going and their hopes for the impact of his visit, in an interview with Vatican News.
By Stefan von Kempis and Isabella H. de Carvalho
As Pope Leo XIV’s Apostolic Journey to Algeria continues, Catholics there are seeing the visit as an encouragement but also as an opportunity to deepen relations with Muslims, who represent the majority of the country’s population.
For Father José Maria Cantal Rivas, a White Father (Missionary of Africa) and the communications director on the ground for the Pope’s visit to Algeria, the journey is an opportunity to encourage the local Christian communities to continue being “witnesses of Jesus in this land.”
He also noted the organisational efforts that have been put in place by the local authorities in order to welcome the Pope, as he is doing a “double visit, as head of state“ and as “the head of the Church,” so a “moral personality and spiritual leader.”
“The authorities have been very flexible in terms of managing and coordinating both protocols,” he explained.
Father Rivas also highlights how many Algerian Muslims may not know very clearly who the Pope is, or what his link is with St. Augustine and with their “ordinary life as Algerian Muslims.”
Muslims and Christians sing together during the Pope’s meeting with the Algerian community in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa (@Vatican Media)
The trip is therefore a good opportunity, he says, “to make a link between this spiritual leader and the Muslim population today and see how we can learn from each other, how we can receive from each other lessons to help us all be better.”
Promoting a more fraternal world
Similarly, Father Peter Claver Kogh, Rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa – where the Pope met with the Algerian community on Monday, April 13 – explains how this Church is an important point of reference not only for Catholics and thus brings many people together.
“Very often, many people come to the Basilica who are not Christians, but who have an attachment to it. They come to pray, and they say they find peace in the Basilica. They ask the Virgin Mary for their needs, just like we do as Christians,” he said.
Pope Leo XIV during the meeting with the Algerian community in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa (@Vatican Media)
It seems fitting that an inscription above the altar in the Basilica says: “Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims.” Additionally, during the meeting with the Algerian community on April 13, Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, in his introductory remarks, said 9 in 10 visitors to the Church are Muslims.
“The Basilica has always been a centre of gravity,” Father Kogh emphasised, “There are a lot of people who come here because of the importance of the Basilica.”
He underlines how on Saturdays (usually the day of rest during the week in many Muslim countries), and on holidays, the Church can welcome up to 1000 visitors per day.
Just as his Basilica is a place that brings people together, Father Kogh hopes the Pope’s visit to Algeria can be a “moment of encounter, where our links and all our efforts of dialogue, of living together, of tolerance, of peace, will be put at the forefront.”
“That will also help many people who were not conscious of it before come out and say: ‘We really need a better world, a more fraternal world!’”
