Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Angola on the third leg of a landmark African tour, which is unfolding alongside an escalating war of words with United States President Donald Trump over the Middle East conflict. The pontiff, the third pope to visit the fossil fuel-rich country after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009, landed in the capital, Luanda, where billboards bearing his image have been erected to welcome him.
The pope's visit, following a three-day stop in Cameroon, includes a meeting with Angola’s President Joao Lourenco and a speech in a nation where about 44 percent of the population identifies as Catholic. His increasingly forceful calls for world peace are likely to resonate in Angola, which emerged in 2002 from a 27-year civil war that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975. Throughout his Africa tour, the first pope from the US has issued pointed warnings about corruption, the exploitation of the continent’s vast resources, and the dangers of artificial intelligence.
The tour has also been marked by a clash with Trump, who has called the 70-year-old head of the Catholic Church “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy”. Trump had also shared what appeared to be an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, prompting a backlash from leaders across the religious spectrum. The pope responded by saying he was not afraid of Trump and that he would continue to speak out against war, marking a rare public clash between a pontiff and a sitting US president.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump allegedly stated that he had the right to disagree with the pontiff, emphasizing that “I can disagree” while acknowledging the pope’s freedom to speak. After US Vice President JD Vance purportedly urged the Vatican to “stick to matters of morality”, Leo said on Thursday that the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” and intensified criticism of those using religion to justify war.
The pope’s warnings against corruption and exploitation may resonate in Angola, where one-third of the population lives below the poverty line despite vast fossil fuel reserves. On Sunday, he will celebrate an open-air Mass in Kilamba, outside Luanda, before travelling by helicopter to Muxima, home to a 16th-century church and a major pilgrimage site. On Monday, Leo is due to travel to Saurimo to visit a retirement home and hold another Mass, then fly to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of his 18,000km African tour.
Source: www.aljazeera.com