On the first day of his historic visit to Algeria on Monday, Pope Leo XIV mixed the spiritual with the political, urging local authorities to liberalise the country's political life and world leaders to abandon “neo-colonial” practices and work for peace.
The American has become the first pontiff to make a papal visit to the North African country, which is the birthplace of Saint Augustine, the ancient Christian thinker who gave his name to the religious order from which the current head of the Catholic Church originates.
The visit to Algeria was somewhat overshadowed by a high-profile feud with US President Donald Trump over the pontiff's opposition to the war on Iran and a failed suicide bombing near Algiers.
In the capital, where he was received with full honours, the Pope first prayed at the Martyrs' Monument, a tribute to the victims of the bloody war of independence against France from 1954 to 1962.
There, alluding to the diplomatic crises that continue to plague French-Algerian relations, he declared that peace "is only possible through forgiveness".
