The Pope, ‘Chrislam,’ and the Selective Courage Toward Power

With his apostolic journey to Algeria, Pope Leo XIV intended to send a very precise message to the world, which we can summarize as follows: peace does not arise only from balances of power but when religions cease to be instruments of conflict and place themselves at the service of human dignity.

The journey thus fits into the wake of the one carried out in November 2025 in Turkey and Lebanon, where the pontiff reiterated that peace becomes possible only when Christians and Muslims choose to recognize one another as “custodians of each other,” transforming borderlands into laboratories of coexistence. On that occasion, the pope indicated Turkey (not Lebanon, curiously) as a “model to imitate” for the entire world, despite the real conditions of Turkish Christians contradicting this narrative.

The coincidence of Leo’s journey to Algeria with the tension between the Vatican and the United States, fueled by messages from Donald Trump on Truth Social that have polarized the Catholic world (and not only) in favor of the pontiff, has made this framework even more evident. Now, however, that the events have settled, it is useful to analyze them with greater emotional detachment in order to understand the meaning and the consequences of what has happened, not only for the Catholic Church but for the entire global religious and political scenario.

The journey opened with the visit of Pope Leo XIV to the Monument of the Martyrs, dedicated to the victims of the war of independence against France, followed by the one to the Great Mosque of Algiers, the third in the world by size after Mecca and Medina. Unlike the stop in Turkey, this time, the pope did not refuse the invitation to pray in the mosque: he remained in silence next to the imam, contemplating the miḥrāb, the niche that indicates to Muslims the direction of prayer. In the subsequent private meeting with the same imam, Leo defined the mosque as “a place that represents the proper space of God.”

The most incisive message came from the pope on social media. In a post on X, he wrote, “Communion between Christians and Muslims takes shape under the mantle of Our Lady of Africa. Here, in Algeria, the maternal love of Lalla Meryem gathers everyone as children, within our rich diversity, in our shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice, and peace. In a world where division and wars sow pain and death, living in unity and peace is a compelling sign.” Lalla Meryem (“Lady Mary”) is the title that Berbers of Islamic religion address to the Mother of Jesus. Ironically, while the pontiff was in Algiers, the police foiled an attack in Blida, just outside the capital, killing two jihadists ready to carry out a massacre.

However, this message is problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, the pope uses a concept with strong theological value—communion—reducing it to a purely sociological meaning. In traditional Catholic doctrine, in fact, communion designates a real participation in the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same ecclesial unity. Its extension to religions that deny fundamental truths of Christianity (first and foremost the divinity of Christ) entails a very significant transformation.

On the other hand, as already happened in Turkey, the pope indicates as an example of this supposed “communion” a country, Algeria, which is among the least suited to represent it. As already analyzed in europeanconservative.com, the persecution of Christians in Algeria has reached its highest levels in recent years: conversion to Christianity entails criminal proceedings, arbitrary arrests, and discrimination; the laws of 2006 and 2012 make it almost impossible to open churches and prohibit proselytism, while seizures of religious material and judicial proceedings increase. 

In light of all this, it remains very difficult to understand on what basis Leo XIV can affirm that, “here in Algeria,” Christians and Muslims build a “communion.” This dissociation between reality and language can only have as its first consequence the weakening of the prophetic task of the Church, even in the name of peace.

What emerges in the implicit proposal of the pontiff is a transposition on a more universal scale, but in a more refined form, of what in African countries such as Nigeria takes the name of Chrislam, that is, the attempt to overcome conflicts between Muslims and Christians with the introduction of a syncretic version of the two religions.

The symbolic and linguistic convergence would thus tend to relativize dogmatic differences in favor of an ethical-practical unity and would have as its ultimate objective peace among nations. Such a perspective is more Masonic than Catholic, because it ultimately refers to an idea of universal brotherhood founded on shared values rather than on revealed Truth. Consequently, the very meaning of ‘peace’ and the relationship that this must have with the concept of truth undergoes a necessary change.

Is peace the end of religious life? Or is it an effect of our adherence to Truth? In the traditional Catholic vision—which finds in Saint Augustine, so dear to Leo XIV, its greatest interpreter—peace is defined as the tranquility of the order: the result of a just harmony of the parts according to truth. It is not, however, the ultimate end of religion, which remains adherence to God, the same Truth.

When peace among nations becomes the ultimate end of religion, a conceptual leap is made: the primacy of truth is surpassed, and a direct link between religion and peace is created. But in doing so, all religions are placed on the same level because there is no longer space for truth and, consequently, emptied of their content: in other words, religions are reduced to geopolitical instruments.

On several occasions recently, Pope Leo XIV has used the word ‘multilateralism’ in his speeches. In the geopolitical sense, it indicates a system of relations founded on cooperation among multiple state and supranational actors with the aim of promoting stability. Transposed into the religious sphere, it implies precisely what has been analyzed here: a plurality of spiritual traditions called to converge on common values (peace, justice, dignity) disregarding theological divergences precisely in order to favor that stability sought at the political level. 

Consequently, a further question also emerges, which concerns no longer only the theoretical level but the operational one: in what way does a religion that conceives itself as an actor of multilateralism exercise its critical function toward political power?

The coincidence between the journey to Algeria and the media clash between Pope Leo XIV and Donald Trump offers us the answer. During this debacle, the pope reaffirmed a principle that is right, legitimate, and necessary: the Church must be free to judge rulers and condemn injustice without fear of the powerful. However, the exercise of a troubling ethical double standard emerges in our case.

Why has the same parrhesia not appeared toward Turkey and Algeria, where the persecution of Christians is systematic and documented? Or toward China, which is continuing to oppress Catholics under a secret agreement granting the regime control over episcopal appointments in exchange for absolute silence on the part of the Holy See over Chinese policies? When asked about the unjust sentence against Jimmy Lai, the pope replied, “I cannot comment on this.” Where, then, is the Church’s proclaimed independence from worldly powers? 

In these cases, papal language has been more cautious, silent, or even misleading. This disparity cannot be dismissed as diplomacy. If, in fact, religion assumes a role within a multilateral order oriented toward stability, its prophetic voice risks turning selective, exercised with greater incisiveness toward some actors and with greater reserve toward others. The credibility of the Catholic Church can only suffer by this.