Pope Leo XIV’s newly announced visit to Algeria in April was welcomed as a dream come true by the archbishop of Algiers on Thursday.
The trip will mark the first time a head of the Catholic Church has visited the North African Muslim-majority country.
“This dream of a pope visiting Algeria… has come true!” Jean-Paul Vesco, the Franco-Algerian cardinal of the Catholic Church who serves as the Archbishop of Algiers, wrote in a statement.
He added that the pontiff had come to see “the Algeria of today, a meeting point between north and south, east and west, the West and the Arab-Muslim world.”
Arabic-language newspaper El Khabar reported that the visit, which was announced by the Vatican on Tuesday, “carries a great symbolic and spiritual dimension.”
For Leo, the trip is in honour of fifth-century Saint Augustine, who was born in modern-day Algeria and whose order he follows.
Leo, who was elected in May last year, will visit the capital Algiers and the city of Annaba – where the Basilica of Saint Augustine stands – from April 13 to 15.
The 70-year-old pontiff said the trip would allow him to “continue the discourse of dialogue and bridge-building between the Christian and the Muslim worlds.”
After Algeria, the pope will visit Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.
The Algerian presidency on Wednesday said the pope’s trip reflected Algeria and the Vatican’s “shared belief in the need to build a world based on peace, dialogue, and justice, against the various challenges currently facing humanity.”
SOURCE:AFP