Pope urges Angolan leaders to prioritize the common good

Courtney Mares, OSV News

Pope Leo XIV landed in Luanda, the capital of Angola, on Saturday, April 18, kicking off a three-day visit to this southern African country, home to 20 million Catholics.

The Pope's visit comes at a time when Angola continues to face profound social challenges. Despite robust economic growth driven by oil and diamond revenues, the country is among those with the lowest life expectancy and among those with the highest infant mortality in the world. Inequality and corruption remain persistent concerns in a country still recovering from a decades-long civil war.

A call against extractive logic and for the common good

«Dear brothers, I mentioned to you the material riches that overbearing interests hoard, even here in your country. How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental catastrophes this extractive logic brings with it!» the Pope said in his first address to Angolan government authorities.

Pope Leo XIV urged Angola's wealthy political leaders to «put the common good before private interests, never confusing your part with the whole. History will prove you right, even if some are hostile to you in the immediate future.».

«The Catholic Church, whose service to the country you appreciate, wishes to be the leaven in the dough and encourage the growth of a just model of coexistence, free from the slavery imposed by elites with inordinate wealth and false joys,» he said.

National reconciliation and the roots of the Angolan faith

The scars of Angola's brutal civil war, which claimed between 500,000 and 800,000 lives between 1975 and 2002, have yet to fully heal. Landmines still dot the countryside, and Bishop Vicente Sanombo of the Diocese of Kuito-Bié said he hopes the papal visit will serve as a catalyst for continued national healing, an aspiration expressed in the papal visit's motto: «Pope Leo XIV, pilgrim of hope, reconciliation and peace, blesses Angola.».

«Your people have suffered every time this harmony has been broken by the arrogance of a few. They bear the scars both of material exploitation and of the attempt to impose one idea on the ideas of others,» said Pope Leo XIV. «Africa urgently needs to overcome the situations and phenomena of conflict and enmity that tear apart the social and political fabric of many countries, feeding poverty and exclusion.».

Angola's Catholic roots run deep. Catholicism arrived with Portuguese missionaries in 1491, and the country remained under Portuguese colonial rule until 1975. According to the latest Vatican statistics, 58% of the population identifies as Catholic, with 1,511 priests ministering to more than 20 million faithful, a ratio of more than 13,000 Catholics per priest.

Diplomatic meeting and Pope Leo XIV's role as pastor

«True joy, which faith recognizes as a gift of the Holy Spirit, frees us from this alienation,» the Pope affirmed. «Let us therefore examine our hearts, dear brothers and sisters, because without joy there is no renewal; without interiority there is no liberation; without encounter there is no politics; without the other there is no justice.».

The papal plane, a chartered ITA Airways jet, landed shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday after a two-hour flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon. At the airport, the Pope was greeted by the president of Angola, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço.

Aboard the papal plane, Pope Leo XIV spoke to reporters, rejecting the media «narrative» that has pitted him against President Donald Trump since the start of his 11-day apostolic trip to Africa.

«I come to Africa primarily as a pastor, as a leader of the Catholic Church, to be with all African Catholics, to celebrate with them, to encourage them and accompany them,» he told reporters.

Pope Leo XIV rode from the airport to the presidential palace in an open-top popemobile, greeting crowds in the streets of Luanda. He then met privately with President Lourenço, who is currently serving his second term as president since 2017.

Spiritual itinerary: Muxima, Saurimo and closeness to the people

The papal visit to Angola, scheduled to last until April 21, will take Pope Leo XIV beyond the capital. He plans to travel to the pilgrimage site of the Shrine of Our Lady of Muxima, one of the country's most revered Catholic sites, where he will lead a public rosary with pilgrims.

He will also visit the northeastern city of Saurimo to celebrate an open-air Mass and visit a home for the elderly, where many refugees from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo are expected to attend, before meeting with members of the local Catholic community at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Luanda.

Cornelio Bento, an Angolan Catholic radio journalist traveling with the Vatican press corps for the trip with Pope Leo XIV, told OSV News that Muxima is a place where many people go on pilgrimage every day, bringing their concerns and their hopes to the heart of Our Lady. He added that it is a special place of pilgrimage for women who wish to have a child.

«If you go to the Muxima Shrine, you will hear many stories of miracles,» Bento said.

«The information I have been given by my colleagues in the country is that Muxima is full. It is full and people are still arriving,» he added, noting that a large crowd has already gathered the day before the Pope's scheduled visit to the Marian shrine.

Bento works for the Catholic media outlet Radio Ecclesia, which was shut down along with other Catholic institutions by Angola's communist government shortly after the country declared independence in 1975 and did not reopen until the late 1990s.

In his address in the country, Pope Leo XIV assured Angolans that he is praying for the victims of the heavy rains and floods in the central city of Benguela, Angola, and expressed his closeness to the families who have lost their homes. The Pope's address concluded his public agenda for the day and was followed by a private dinner with the Catholic bishops of Angola.