Bonus Sample: Leo and Restless Hearts in Algeria

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

Social Sciences, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.0 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2026

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In April 2026, Pope Leo XIV, deep in a public feud with President Trump over the Iran war, made his first trip to Africa. He chose Algeria: the birthplace of Augustine, the spiritual founder of his order. Algeria is demanding reparations from France for 132 years of colonial rule and 1.5 million dead. It’s parliament declared French colonization a "state crime" just four months before Leo landed. Before visiting with any Catholics, Leo laid a wreath at an anticolonial martyrs' monument, removed his shoes in one of the world's largest mosques, condemned "neocolonial tendencies" to the diplomatic corps, and honored 19 Catholic martyrs who stayed to serve Algerian Muslims through a civil war that killed 200,000. The right-wing press logged every stop as an outrage. The Arab press read it as vindication. And the old-school Algerian left noted that papal forgiveness might be easier for France to accept than a reparations bill. Matthew reads the visit through Augustine, historical materialism, liberation theology, and the testament of Christian de Chergé, prior of Tibhirine, who in 1994 wrote about his immanent martyrdom as the insurgents drew near. In his final testament, de Chergé wrote: I well know the contempt with which the Algerians taken as a whole have come to be dismissed. I also know the caricature of Islam that a certain kind of Islamism encourages. It is too easy to put one’s conscience at rest by identifying this religion with the forms of fundamentalism of its extremists. Show Notes New Advent — Church Fathers: Confessions, St. Augustine NPR — Transcript of Cardinal Robert Prevost's first speech as Pope Leo XIV Vatican.va — Greeting to Journalists during the Rome–Algiers flight Vatican.va — Meeting with the Authorities, Civil Society and the Diplomatic Corps, Djamaa el Djazair Conference Cnter Vatican.va — Visit to the Great Mosque of Algiers Vatican.va — Meeting with the Algerian Catholic Community, Basilica of Our Lady of Africa Al Jazeera — Algeria declares France's colonial rule a crime in new law France 24 — French presidential hopeful Macron cealls colonisation a 'crime against humanity' OCSO — Testament of Christian de Chergé Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone. My name is Matthew Rembski. This is Conspiraturity Podcast, where we investigate the roots and intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism. You can follow myself, Derek and Julian. We're all easy to find on Blue Sky. The podcast is on
0:22.8	Instagram and threads. Also easy to find under its own handle. And you can find me on YouTube
0:30.4	and TikTok as anti-fascist dad. Also, I have a new book out with North Atlantic books. It's called Anti-Fascist Dad.
0:40.8	Urgent conversations with young people in chaotic times, and I'll put the link for that in the notes.
0:47.1	This Patreon bonus episode is called Leo and Restless Hearts in Algeria.
0:59.2	It's about an Augustinian pope visiting the birthplace of Augustine.
1:08.3	It's about the Pope landing in the midst of a battle over colonial reparations demanded of the former French Empire.
1:13.3	In the midst of missiles raining down on Iran, in the midst of new rashes of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and in the midst of Leo's own tense dialogue
1:20.3	with a crumbling American Empire.
1:23.9	On a two-day whirlwind visit, Leo stood at an anti-colonial shrine.
1:30.7	He honored Muslim and Christian martyrs.
1:33.2	He prayed for an unarmed and disarming peace.
1:38.1	And by invoking Augustine's multilingual, pre-colonial ideal of the Pilgrim Church, he refused the premise that
1:48.3	Christianity and Empire are the same project. But I'm going to start with a daydream.
2:00.1	In 397, Aurelius Augustina sat at a writing desk in his study in the villa attached to the basilica complex at Hippo in what is now Anaba, Algeria.
2:14.2	He'd moved into this house when the Christians of Hippo, these were a polyglot congregation of Romanized Berbers, Greek and Latin-speaking settlers, some Jewish converts.
2:25.3	They had made him bishop against his will the year before.
2:29.3	And his scribe sat beside him with a wax tablet, rolls of parchment beside him, ready for the final draft of the morning.
2:39.2	The tools of writing brightened by the flames of oil lamps.
2:43.6	Augustine dictated his books and sermons when the communal house was quiet.
2:49.0	The limestone walls had gathered the cool of the night and would hold it close
2:53.3	as the sun rose to cast beams through small high windows onto the mosaic floor.
	...

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