Pope Leo sets out on a 10-day visit to Africa—his first as pope to this continent—on Monday morning, April 13. He will visit four countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, in that order.
It is a challenging and complex trip, his first to the continent where the Catholic Church is growing faster than anywhere else in the world and today has 288 million members, 20.3 percent of the world’s total Catholic population (Vatican Yearbook, 2024).
As the first Augustinian pope, he comes to the continent where St. Augustine was born, served as a bishop and founded his first religious communities; and where, as prior general of his order (2001-2013), Robert Prevost visited many times because the Augustinians are present in many African countries, including Algeria.
It is a physically demanding trip on which he will take 12 plane rides and four more by helicopter, and deliver eight speeches, eight homilies and six greetings in four different languages (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish) to large audiences.
He will be accompanied on the journey by cardinals of the Roman Curia: Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State; Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization of Peoples; George Koovakad, prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, and two African cardinals: Peter Turkson and Robert Sarah. The new substitute (or chief of staff) of the secretariat of state, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, and the secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, will also travel with Pope Leo, as will his security detail and doctor.
Some 70 journalists, television and radio operators will also accompany him, including America’s senior Vatican correspondent.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, 93, the senior African cardinal, told America of his great joy and gratitude that Pope Leo was going to Africa and visiting four different countries in this first year of his pontificate. He hailed the visit as “a great encouragement” to the leaders of these four countries in their efforts at “development in social, cultural, educational and interreligious matters, in collaboration with peoples from differing political backgrounds.” He added: “For the Catholic Church in these countries this papal visit is a great blessing and encouragement as the church shares the joys and sorrows, hopes and challenges of each country.”
Algeria
Pope Leo will depart from Rome’s Leonardo DaVinci airport on Monday morning and arrive at Algiers International Airport after a two-hour flight. He is the first pope to visit this country, and he will be greeted by Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebhhoune and given a state welcome with guard of honor, 21-gun salute and the playing of the national anthems of the Vatican, the world’s smallest state, and of Algeria, the largest country in Africa.
From there he will be driven to the Maqam Echaid, the memorial of the martyrs of the war of independence from France (1954-1962). There he will be welcomed by a government minister and the French-born cardinal archbishop of Algiers, Jean-Paul Vesco. He will give a brief speech.
Pope Leo will go from there to El Mouradia, the presidential palace that overlooks the city of Algiers and its 3 million inhabitants, for a private conversation with the president. Afterward, he will be taken to the congress center of Djamaa el Djazair, where he will deliver a keynote address to an audience of 1,400 representatives from state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps.
It will be an important speech, likely to address the political and social situation in Algeria, a predominantly Muslim country of 48 million people that following the bitter war of independence also suffered from a 10-year bloody civil war (1992-2002) following the annulment of the Dec. 1991 parliamentary elections, which the Islamic SalvationFront appeared to win, and the subsequent military coup d’etat. The civil war saw Algeria’s military fighting the Armed Islamic Group in urban areas and the Islamic Armed Movement in the mountains. During that war, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people were killed, many of them civilians, including intellectuals, journalists, 100 imams and 19 Catholic martyrs who were beatified in 2018. Leo is expected to speak about peace and advocate dialogue and fraternity between Christians and Muslims.
From the congress center, Leo will visit the Great Mosque of Algiers, the third largest in the world, and opened in 2019.
Next he will visit the Center of Welcome and Friendship of the Augustinian missionary sisters, two of whom were killed in the civil war and are among the 19 martyrs. Afterward he will visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, opened in 1872, where the funeral of the Catholic martyrs was held. There he will greet and address the Catholic community. Later he will have a private meeting with the bishops of Algeria.
On his second day, April 14, he will fly to Annaba, formerly called Hippo, a city in the northeast of the country where St. Augustine was bishop (396-430 CE). There he will pray at the archeological ruins and then visit the house of the Little Sisters of the Poor who care for the elderly in need.
Next, he will join the Augustinian community that cares for the Basilica of St. Augustine and have lunch with them. Later he will celebrate Mass in the basilica for 500 faithful before returning to Algiers. On April 15, Leo will bid farewell to Algeria and take a five-hour flight to Cameroon.
Cameroon
Pope Leo will arrive at Yahoundé-Nsimalen international Airport in this central African country just after 3.00 p.m. local time, and be welcomed by Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute and a guard of honor.
From there, he will drive to the presidential palace in Yaoundé, the capital and “city of the seven hills” where some 5 million of the country’s 30 million citizens, from over 200 ethnic and even more linguistic groups, live.
At the palace he will be greeted by the country’s 93-year-old president, Paul Biya, who has ruled this land since 1982 and won another seven-year term last year in what many consider a fraudulent election. He is the oldest head of state in the world, in a country where 70 percent of the population are under the age of 35. Leo is the third pope to be welcomed by the president, after John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
After a private conversation with the president, Leo will travel to the Palace of Congresses, where he will be welcomed by the prime minister and give a keynote address to representatives of the state, civil society and the diplomatic corps in this majority Christian country—8.3 million of whom are Catholics, with a sizable Muslim population (around 20 percent). He is expected to emphasize the need for peace and reconciliation in this land where there has been for 10 years an armed conflict in the English-speaking part of the country.
To understand this conflict, one needs to recall that Cameroon became a German colony in 1884, but after World War I in 1920 it was divided between France and the United Kingdom under the League of Nations (and subsequently U.N.) mandates. The French sector gained independence in 1960, as did the Anglophone sector in 1961. However, many English-speaking Cameroonians were unhappy then because they were not given the right to autonomy by the U.N., but only offered the option of either joining the French sector or Nigeria. Most opted to join the French sector, and this led to the establishment of a federal state, while the rest joined Nigeria.
Subsequent developments led to the increasing outward marginalization and “francophonization” of Anglophone Cameroon, as an April 6 article in La Civilta Cattolica explained. It recalled that “when lawyers and teachers protested against the continual erosion of their Anglophone legal and educational heritage by French Cameroon, they were met with brutal repression by the Cameroonian government, escalating to the current crisis that has shaken the British Cameroons since 2016.”
La Civilitá Cattolica says Pope Leo’s visit is being viewed with “great hope” as “a particularly important occasion to encourage the political authorities and the people of Cameroon toward reconciliation and the building of a durable peace.”
Leo will not only visit Yaoundé and Douala in the French region, but also Bamenda in the Anglophone region.
After speaking at the congress hall, Pope Leo will visit an orphanage and afterward have a private meeting with the bishops of Cameroon.
On April 16, the pope will take a plane to Bamenda in the restive northwest region where conflict has existed for 10 years. There he will have “an encounter for peace” with Christians and Muslims at St. Joseph’s Cathedral and later celebrate an open-air Mass “for justice and peace” for 20,000 people before returning to Yaoundé.
The next day, April 17, Leo will travel by plane to Douala, the largest city and economic hub of Cameroon with a population of some 4 million. There he will celebrate Mass at the Japoma Stadium and visit a hospital. On his return to Yaoundé, he will speak at the Catholic University of Central Africa.
On Saturday morning, April 18, after celebrating Mass at the airport, he will bid goodbye to Cameroon and take a two-and-a-half hour plane ride to Angola.
Angola
On arrival at Luanda’s international airport early afternoon, Pope Leo will be welcomed by Angola’s President João Manuel Gonçalves and given a state welcome. He is the third pope to come to this oil-rich country after John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
From the airport he will travel in the popemobile to the presidential palace in Luanda, the seaport capital city, which has 10 million inhabitants, a quarter of Angola’s total population. At the palace, Leo will have a private conversation with the president and afterwards go to the presidential palace to address 400 representatives from the state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps. Here too he is likely to emphasize peace and reconciliation in this country, which, immediately after gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, suffered a long civil war in a power struggle between the two anti-colonial guerilla movements—the Marxist MPLA and the anti-communist UNITA. The conflict ended in 2002 but the effects linger on.
Leo is expected to speak about the situation of poverty, income inequality, corruption and rising illiteracy in this country of 40 million people—almost 70 percent of whom live in urban areas with an average age of 16.7. He is also likely to advocate the commitment to evangelization and holistic human development. After that event, Leo will travel to the nunciature for a private meeting with Angola’s Catholic bishops.
On Sunday, April 19, he will celebrate Mass for 200,000 people at Quilamba (Kilamba), a city built by the Chinese as part of a government urban development program after the civil war. Afterward, he will travel by helicopter to Muxima, 70 miles from Luanda, to pray the rosary at the Marian shrine of “Mama Muxima” (“Mother of the heart”) on a hill overlooking the country’s largest river—the Kwanza. Here there is an ancient and revered statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, and some 2 million Angolans come to pray here each year, including Protestants and Muslims.
Next day, Monday, April 20, Leo will take a 90 minute plane ride to the city of Saurimo in northeastern Angola, one of the world’s diamond hubs. There he will visit a home for the elderly and celebrate Mass for 30,000 people in the esplanade. On his return to Luanda he will speak to the bishops, priests, women and men religious and pastoral workers at the parish of Our Lady of Fatima.
On Tuesday morning, April 21—the first anniversary of the death of Pope Francis—he will bid farewell to Angola and take a two and a half hour flight to Equatorial Guinea.
Equatorial Guinea
Pope Leo will arrive just before midday at the international airport of Malabo, on the island of Bioko of this country on the west coast of Central Africa; one part of the country is on islands, the rest is on the mainland between Cameroon and Gabon.
He is the second pope, after John Paul II in 1982, to visit this country of 1.8 million people that was formerly a Spanish colony (1778-1968) and is today the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa. More than 80 percent of its population is Catholic.
He will be greeted on arrival by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 83, who has ruled this country in an authoritarian way since Aug. 3, 1979, after seizing power in a military coup. Leo will receive a state welcome.
From there he will go to the presidential palace in Malabo for a private conversation with the president, and then in the palace hall he will address representatives of the state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps. Afterward, he will have lunch at the archbishop’s residence and then go to the Leo XIV Campus of the National University—the government gave it that title last February!—where he will address the students and professors. On leaving the university, he will travel to the Jean Pierre Olie psychiatric hospital that was established in 2014 to integrate the patients into society. He will greet the staff and patients.
On Wednesday, April 22, Pope Leo will take a one hour plane ride from Malabo to Mongomo, in the mainland part of the country. Mongomo has been described as a city of paradoxes because the oil boom of the 1990s brought much wealth to some in an otherwise underdeveloped nation.
He will celebrate Mass in the city’s Basilica of the Immaculate Conception—the second largest church in Africa—for 100,000 faithful. Afterwards he will visit the “Escuela Tecnologica Papa Francesco,” named in memory of the Argentine pope who dedicated much effort to helping young people.
From there, Leo will take a 40 minute plane ride to the coastal city of Bata, which was founded by the Portuguese in the 17th century, but later ceded to Spain. On arrival there, he will go by car to Bata prison to greet the prison staff, pastoral workers and detainees.
Next, he will visit the site of a munitions explosion on March 7, 2021 that killed over 100 people, and pray there just as he did last December in Beirut at the site of a different kind of explosion.
Before returning to Malabo, he will meet with young people and families at Bata Stadium, and address them in Spanish.
On the morning of his last day here, April 23, Leo will celebrate Mass at Malabo stadium, before driving to the airport from where he will bid farewell to the country.
During the six hours and ten minutes flight back to Rome, Pope Leo will give a press conference.