(AFP) – Pope Leo XIV spoke out against the “scourge of corruption” at a giant open-air Mass attended by 100,000 worshippers near Angola’s capital Sunday, before visiting a venerated historic shrine in the country scarred by poverty and inequality. Leo arrived in resource-rich Angola on Saturday on the third leg of a whirlwind four-nation African tour on which he condemned the plunder of the continent’s resources — and had a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump.
Authorities said 100,000 people turned out for the Mass at Kilamba, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the capital, some sleeping on the ground overnight in anticipation. After pushing through the crowds in his popemobile, Leo delivered a message of hope for the country still marked by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. “We too can and want to build a country where old divisions will definitively be overcome, where hatred and violence will disappear, where the scourge of corruption will be healed by a new culture of justice and sharing,” he said.
– ‘Call leaders to account’ –
On arriving 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. Angola is one of Africa’s top oil and diamond producers but around a third of the population of 36.6 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank. “We are very rich in natural resources but there is a glaring inequality between those who live well and the others,” said Patricio Musanga, 32, before the Kilamba Mass. “The pope must call our leaders to account. I believe that at least he will be listened to by the authorities,” he told journalists. Father Pedro Chingandu, a Catholic priest who had come from the eastern province of Moxico, told AFP: “We need real democracy and the redistribution of wealth and justice.”
– A world without war, misery –
At Muxima, home to a major shrine some 110 kilometres from Luanda, hundreds of people spent the night in multicoloured tents ahead of Leo’s arrival. Around 50,000 worshippers attended his prayers, where he reiterated a call for a world “where there are no more wars, no injustices, no misery, no dishonesty”. Meraldo Amon Daniel, a 21-year-old nursing student, said she believed the pope’s visit to the town’s 16th-century Mama Muxima shrine “can strengthen the faith, not only of the faithful, but also of the country’s authorities.” According to religious officials, the church on the Kwanza River was built to baptise enslaved people before their Atlantic crossing to the Americas. “The presence of so many pilgrims here, despite the painful page of history that took place here, has great significance for many of us,” Matias Chitandula, a 24-year-old philosophy student, told AFP.
On Monday, Leo will travel 800 kilometres east of Luanda to Saurimo, the capital of a marginalised region that is home to the country’s largest diamond mine. He leaves Angola on Tuesday for Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of an 18,000-kilometre journey that began in Algeria.
– Not debating Trump –
The early part of Leo’s trip to the continent was overshadowed by a war of words with Trump, who labelled him “weak” and said he “was not a fan”. The first American pontiff told journalists on Saturday that he regretted that some of his remarks had been interpreted as a response to criticism from Trump. It was “not in my interest at all” to debate the US leader, said Leo, who has displayed an assertive style on the Africa tour, his first major international trip since becoming pontiff last year.
– Francois Ausseill and Clement Melki
© 2024 AFP
