Pope Leo XIV arrived in Angola on Saturday on the third leg of visit to Africa, lamenting that the tour had been marked by a war of words with US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Leo flew into the oil-rich country from Cameroon, where he ended his visit with a huge public mass.<\/p>\n
After landing at an airport in the capital Luanda, he travelled in his popemobile to meet President Joao Lourenco with hundreds of cheering and waving people lining his route.<\/p>\n
On the plane to the southern African country, Leo told journalists that he regretted remarks he had made during his tour had been interpreted as a response to criticism from Trump, insisting he had no interest in debating the US leader.<\/p>\n
An example was a speech about “tyrants” ransacking the world that he delivered in Cameroon on Thursday on the second leg of the trip, he said.<\/p>\n
The remarks had been written well before Trump’s “comment on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting”, he said.<\/p>\n
“And yet it was perceived as if I were trying to start a new debate with the president, which doesn’t interest me at all,” Leo said.<\/p>\n
“Much of what has been written since then has been more commentary on commentary trying to interpret what has been said,” he said.<\/p>\n
Leo had blasted “tyrants” while on a high-security visit to Cameroon’s northwestern city of Bamenda, the epicentre of a nearly decade-long English-speaking separatist insurgency that has killed thousands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The remarks were interpreted by the US media in particular as a reference to Trump.<\/p>\n
But Leo insisted that “there’s been a certain narrative that has not been accurate in all of its aspects”.<\/p>\n
Trump had said on April 12 he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo”, and accused his fellow American of “toying with a country (Iran) that wants a nuclear weapon”.<\/p>\n
He later doubled down with a post on Truth Social, saying: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Courage to change’ –<\/p>\n
The US-born pope concluded his three-day visit to Cameroon with an open-air mass at Yaounde airport before 200,000 people.<\/p>\n
In his homily delivered in French, he thanked the people of Cameroon and urged the crowd to have “the courage to change habits and structures”, in a country ruled with an iron fist by 93-year-old Paul Biya since 1982.<\/p>\n
Throughout his 11-day four-nation Africa visit, which started in Algeria, he has delivered pointed warnings against corruption, the plunder of the continent’s resources and the dangers of artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They are warnings that are likely to strike a chord in oil-rich Angola.<\/p>\n
Despite its wealth of resources, around a third of the population of 36.6 million people lives below the international poverty line of $2.15 per day, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n
The economy is heavily dependent on oil, leaving it exposed to price fluctuations, while corruption is reportedly rampant.<\/p>\n
Around 15 million people in the Portuguese-speaking country, about 44 percent of the population, identify as Catholic.<\/p>\n
Leo is the third pontiff to visit the country, after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009.<\/p>\n
– ‘Needs of the youth’ –<\/p>\n
“There is a lot of suffering, a lot of poverty in Angola. I hope the pope will see with his own eyes the needs of the youth here,” said Antonio Masaidi, a 33-year-old engineer.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Leo will celebrate a giant open-air mass in Kilamba on Luanda’s outskirts.<\/p>\n
In the afternoon, he will travel by helicopter to the village of Muxima, about 130 kilometres (80 miles) southeast of Luanda, home to a 16th-century church that has become one of southern Africa’s most important pilgrimage sites.<\/p>\n
On April 20, he is due to travel more than 800 kilometres from the capital to visit a retirement home in Saurimo and celebrate another mass before departing the following morning.<\/p>\n
Leo will then fly to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of his whirlwind 18,000-kilometre tour.<\/p>\n
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