MUXIMA, Angola: Tens of thousands of people gathered on Sunday for a giant open-air Mass by Pope Leo XIV near Angola’s capital Luanda, where he delivered a message of hope to the resource-rich country marked by poverty.
The pope was due later in the town of Muxima south of Luanda, which has become one of southern Africa’s most venerated pilgrimage sites.
Leo flew into Luanda on Saturday, the third leg of a whirlwind four-nation African tour on which he has condemned corruption and the plunder of the continent’s resources — and had a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump.
Around 100,000 people attended the Mass at Kilamba, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the capital, authorities said.
Many had slept on the ground overnight in T-shirts bearing the image of the American pope.
After pushing through the crowds in his popemobile, Leo encouraged Angolans “to look to the future with hope” in a “new beginning” for the nation still scarred by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
It was possible “to build a country where old divisions are overcome forever, where hatred and violence disappear, where the wound of corruption is healed by a new culture of justice and sharing”, Leo said.
On arriving on Saturday from Cameroon, Leo went straight into an event with Angolan President Joao Lourenco and other officials where he spoke out against the “suffering” caused by poverty and the rampant exploitation of natural resources.
He urged the officials to “not be afraid of dissent”.
Not debating Trump
At Muxima, hundreds of people spent the night in multicoloured tents ahead of Leo’s arrival.
The town’s celebrated 16th-century Mama Muxima shrine “is the soul and the heart of all Angolans,” said Veronica Simao Teka, in her sixties.
Meraldo Amon Daniel, a 21-year-old nursing student, said she believed the pope’s visit “can strengthen the faith, not only of the faithful, but also of the country’s authorities.”
Leo started his African tour in Algeria on Monday, then headed to Cameroon.
He told journalists on the flight to Angola he regretted that a war of words with Trump — who labelled him “weak” after he called for an end to the Middle East war — had overshadowed some of the trip.
It is “not in my interest at all” to debate the US leader, said the first American pontiff.
From Angola, Leo will travel to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of an 18,000-kilometre journey across the continent.
