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With Algeria visit, Pope Leo returns to his Augustinian roots
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Pope Leo XIV during his meeting with the community in Algiers, Algeria, on April 13.
PHOTO: EPA
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Matthew Mpoke Bigg
NAIROBI, Kenya – Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Algeria has been billed as a homecoming for the first pope from the Order of St Augustine to the place where Augustine himself, a giant of the early Church, preached the Gospel.
But after US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on April 12 that Pope Leo is “weak on crime” and “catering to the radical left”, the pontiff’s identity as an Augustinian has taken on wider significance.
