Lent 2026
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“May peace be with you all (...) A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering!” These first words of Pope Leo XIV, spoken from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, have been heard around the world. They refer to the spirituality of Blessed Christian de Chergé (1937-1996).
In the mid-1990s, the Trappist prior of the monastery of Tibhirine and his brothers chose to remain in Algeria despite the civil war that was tearing the country apart. They preferred to risk their lives to maintain a simple and fraternal presence among the local population.
After being threatened by terrorists for the first time at Christmas 1994, Christian de Chergé wrote a prayer in which he implored, “Lord, disarm him, and disarm us…” He thus expressed a vision of peace that begins with the disarmament of the heart and of the community itself.
Leo XIV referred to this prayer in the preface to his book entitled The Power of the Gospel: Christian Faith in Ten Words (“La forza del Vangelo. La fede cristiana in 10 parole,” not yet available in English), a collection of some of his speeches published in Italy in November 2025.
The Pope has already visited Algeria
The first Pope to make an apostolic journey to Algeria had the opportunity to visit twice when he was Prior General of the Augustinians. He first visited in 2001 for a symposium on the figure of St. Augustine, and returned in 2013 for the inauguration of the restored Basilica of St. Augustine in Annaba.
On that occasion, he went to the Bab El Oued neighborhood to pay tribute to two Spanish women, Sister Esther and Sister Caridad. These two Augustinian nuns, from the same spiritual family as him, were murdered in 1994. They are among the 19 blessed martyrs of Algeria. In Algiers, the future pope also visited the library of the Casbah, where the first two blessed martyrs of Algeria, Sister Paul-Hélène and Brother Henri Vergès, were killed on May 8, 1994.
At the end of the last conclave, Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco pointed out to the new Pope Leo XIV the coincidence of the dates between the liturgical memorial of the martyrs of Algeria and that of his election, both on May 8.
“The two Augustinian martyrs and the others are very much present in his personal memory,” the Archbishop of Algiers told I.MEDIA last summer.
An experience of “communion with all humanity”
Furthermore, during the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples held in Rimini in August 2025, the pope emphasized in a message the importance of an exhibition dedicated to the martyrs of Algeria. “In them shines forth the Church's vocation to dwell in the desert in profound communion with all humanity, overcoming the walls of mistrust that divide religions and cultures” and taking a path of “presence and simplicity, knowledge and ‘dialogue of life,’” wrote Leo XIV.
He thus recalled that the mission isn’t limited to verbal proclamation, but is embodied in a life shared to the point of ultimate sacrifice. This is exemplified by Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran, who was assassinated in 1996 along with his Muslim driver, Mohamed.
Christian martyrs thus very concretely mingled their blood with the nearly 100,000 deaths of this civil war, among whom were many imams, journalists, magistrates, and political leaders, whose murders have not all been solved.
During his stay in Algeria, Leo XIV will not visit Tibhirine. This trip will be mainly dedicated to St. Augustine, with a highly symbolic stop in Annaba, formerly Hippo, where this Father of the Church was bishop from 395 to 430. But the other challenge will be to encourage the efforts of the small local Catholic community to bear witness to the Christian faith in a predominantly Muslim country.
It is therefore likely that the legacy of the monks of Tibhirine and other martyrs of Algeria will be reflected in the speeches and actions of this trip.
