Pope Leo Ignores Christian and Jewish Genocide in Algeria

How Algeria went from 1 million Catholics to 8,000 and from 140,000 Jews to 200

In 1955, Algeria had over 1 million Catholics and 140,000 Jews. Today, as Pope Leo visits Algeria, there are some 8,000 Catholics in Algeria and there are fewer than 200 Jews. 99% of the population of what was one of the old territories of Christianity are Sunni Muslims.

Was Islam so popular that all the Christians and Jews decided to convert? They were persecuted, murdered, tortured and driven out by Islamic violence in our lifetimes.

Christians and Jews had lived in Algeria since Roman times. Now they’re gone.

And the perpetrators of the genocide are being praised by Pope Leo XIV.

Alongside paying tribute to the 19 Martyrs of Algeria, beatified in 2018, priests, monks and nuns, including 7 beheaded monks and 2 nuns murdered on the way to mass, by Islamic terrorists who later received amnesty for their crimes from the Algerian government, Pope Leo also paid tribute to the Jihadis at their memorial.

Pope Leo visited Algeria’s so-called Martyrs’ Monument, “Maqam Echahid,” located above the El Mujahid or Jihadi Museum, erected by former Islamic-Socialist terrorist dictator Houari Boumédiène who had headed the ALN, one of whose specialties was the “Smile of Kabylie” in which the tongue was pulled through a slit throat, and which was responsible for the Oran Massacre of Christians and Jews that ethnically cleansing a formerly non-Muslim city.

Women and children had their throats cut by Muslim mobs bent on slaughter. 250,000 non-Muslims had lived in Oran. After the massacres, over 200,000 survivors fled, told that they had a choice between a “suitcase and a coffin”.

Pope Leo XIV visited the Jihadi site and in his remarks claimed that “our presence here at this monument pays tribute to this history of Algeria and to the very spirit of a people who fought for the independence, dignity and sovereignty of this nation.”

Praising the Arab Muslim terrorists who had set out to eliminate Christianity from Algeria, the pontiff declared that “they lost their lives but in doing so, they gave them up for the love of their own people. May their example sustain the people of Algeria and all of us on our journey, for true freedom is not merely inherited, it is chosen anew every day.”

The “love of their own people” was based on a fervent hatred of all non-Muslims, acted out through horrible atrocities, including the deliberate murder of children.

The ‘martyrs’ of the Jihadi Museum under the monument at which Pope Leo made his remarks include Mohammed Larbi Ben M’Hidi, the Muslim terrorist leader responsible for bombings and shootings against non-Muslim civilians including the Milk-Bar bombing during which a Muslim woman planted a bomb in a shop filled with mothers and children having milkshakes.

Mothers were killed and children lost arms and legs.

Danielle Michel-Chich, a 5-year-old girl, had gone to have ice cream with her grandmother. Danielle lost her leg, while her grandmother lost her life. Nicole Guiraud, a 10-year-old girl, lost her arm. Some young women were killed in the brutal Islamic terrorist attacks.

Zohra Drif, the monster who planted the bomb targeting mothers and children, is an honored figure in Algeria, and was the wife of Rabah Bitat, Algeria’s former president who succeeded Boumediene. The terrorist also served as the vice president of Algeria’s parliament.

This is what Pope Leo XIV decided to honor and praise as the “example” for Algeria.

On his visit, Pope Leo repeatedly invoked St. ​Augustine of Hippo who had been from Algeria. Hippo was sacked and destroyed by the Islamic invaders. The city later known as Bône (known as Anaba under Muslim occupation) was one of the cities where non-Muslims fled Muslim violence.

Rather than address what had actually happened, Pope Leo insisted on pretending that there was nothing religious about Christian clergy being massacred by Muslim terrorists, contending that “In the face of hatred and violence, they remained faithful to charity even to the point of sacrificing themselves alongside many other men and women, Christians and Muslims.”

Visiting the Great Mosque of Algiers, erected by former terrorist dictator Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had provided amnesty to all members of the Armed Islamic Group, the Jihadist group responsible for the murder of Christian clergy, including nuns and a bishop, Pope Leo praised the gargantuan monstrosity as a “place of prayer” from which “we can learn to respect one another, live in harmony and build a world of peace.”

An Algerian Muslim convert to Christianity however asked to only be referred to anonymously.

Algeria has closed dozens of churches, prosecuted Christians for giving away or even selling copies of the bible and non-registered church services have been banned.

The Algerian constitution declares that “Islam shall be the religion of the State” and demands that the president “swear by Allah” and “glorify the Islamic religion”. So much for coexistence.

The Catholic Church is vanishing from Islamized Algeria. What was once a community of over a million had shrunk to 100,000 by 1965, 45,000 by 1980, and 8,000 now. Few of the clergy are local.

Rather than standing up for local persecuted Christians, Pope Leo celebrated Christian and Jewish genocide in Algeria, and championed its expansion into Europe.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.