Pope Léon XIV receives Algerian President Tebboune: First visit to the Vatican since 1999

ByMuhammad

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was received Thursday morning in audience by Pope Léon XIV, marking the first official visit of an Algerian head of state to the Vatican since that of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 1999.

According to Vatican Newsthe interview took place at the apostolic palace, followed by a meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state of the Holy See, and Mgr Daniel Pacho, in charge of multilateral relations. The discussions focused on good diplomatic relations between Algeria and the Holy See, the current geopolitical situation, as well as the place of the Church in the country. For Vatican Newsthis visit also made it possible to emphasize “the importance of interreligious dialogue and cultural collaboration in the construction of peace and fraternity in the world”, a particularly symbolic message at the time of increasing tensions on an international scale.

This meeting comes less than three months after the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first pontiff sovereign from the Augustinian tradition, whose tutelary figure, Saint Augustine, was bishop of Hippone, in the present Annaba, in the northeast of Algeria. Two years earlier, President Tebboune had welcomed Mgr Paul Gallagher, secretary for relations with States in Algeria, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Algiers and the Holy See. A displacement greeted at the time by the Archbishop of Algiers, Mgr Jean-Paul Vesco, as a sign of attention to the Catholic minority of the country.

This visit also marks Algiers’s desire to strengthen its image on the international scene as an actor in interreligious dialogue and regional stability. In a context tense in the Maghreb and the Middle East, the rapprochement with the Vatican could also serve Algerian diplomacy, anxious to preserve its role of balance between North and South.

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Muhammad

Muhammad is a visionary thinker and passionate writer who has been contributing to Understanding Islam for several years.