A bizarre and erroneous narrative has been peddled in recent days that the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, panders to Islam and has remained silent over the persecution of Christians.
Much stems from his Algeria visit earlier this week, where the 70-year-old Pontiff visited the Martyrs’ Memorial, which honours those who died in the war that ensued when Algeria sought independence from France. Some have tried to present this as a bending of the cap to the Islamic forces which sought freedom from a Catholic power. Whilst it is correct to say that Algerian independence led to the marginalisation of Christianity in public life, as well as the exodus of Catholic European settlers, French colonial power was a far cry from a model of Catholic integralism. Indeed, in 1958, the first year of the Algerian War of Independence, the French constitution was adopted to establish the Fifth Republic, stating: “France is an indivisible, secular (laïque), democratic and social Republic.”
