AFRICA
LEO FOCUSES ON THE MOST FORGOTTEN CONTINENT
(September 29, 2026)
Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea are the stops on Pope Leo XIV’s first trip to African soil, less than a year after his election. From April 13 to 23rd, he is undertaking a journey across what is perhaps the continent most forgotten by mainstream media, except when biblical-scale tragedies occur or when thousands of young people attempt to emigrate.
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COMMON TRAITS
The chosen countries achieved independence, more or less peacefully, between the 1960s and 1970s: Algeria and Angola at the end of liberation wars, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea relatively peacefully.
Unfortunately, they are all ruled by dictatorships or patriarchal regimes. In Yaoundé and Malabo, the leader has been the same for decades, while in Luanda and Algiers, a caste identifying with a dominant party has crystallized.
For all of them, the economic model is based on exporting raw materials, primarily oil and gas, the revenues of which enrich only a few.
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ALGERIA: “PEACE BE WITH YOU”
A vast, predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking country, it has been independent since 1962. The eight preceding years were marked by the clash between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and France.
Paris had dominated it since the 19th century, considering it an integral part of the Métropole. Thus, when the Algerians rose up on November 1, 1954, the reaction of the settlers and the army was brutal.
After gaining independence and electing Ben Bella to the Presidency, the military carried out a coup in 1965, taking control of the State.
Once the boom years of hydrocarbon exports had passed, in the 1980s, the dissatisfaction of vast swathes of the population was channeled by the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front). In the multi-party legislative elections of December 26, 1991, its candidates won 188 seats.
In the second round, the triumph of the Islamists was all but assured. On January 2, 1992, however, came a plot twist: the armed forces halted the electoral process, declared a state of siege, and outlawed the FIS.
Soon, it was war: the Salafists responded with weapons. For years, the army and Islamists clashed bloodily. The population was caught in the crossfire of reprisals from both sides, all while hydrocarbon exports never ceased.
Peace was only restored at the end of the 1990s. In 2019, new protests erupted: Algiers’ Gen Z took to the streets to protest corruption and bad governance.
The authorities reacted with repression.
With all this in mind, Pope Leo presented himself to the Algerians proclaiming that the motto of his trip is: “Peace be with you,” the words spoken by Jesus after the resurrection (John 20:21).
Speaking in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa (April 13), he said:
“Peace and harmony have been fundamental characteristics of the Christian community since its origins (Acts 2:42-47), by the very desire of Jesus (John 17:23) who said: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (John 13:35). Saint Augustine, in this regard, stated that the Church ‘gives birth to nations, but they are members of only one’ (Sermon 192, 2), and Saint Cyprian wrote: ‘The greatest sacrifice to God is our peace and fraternal concord, a people united in the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ (The Lord’s Prayer, 23).”
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CAMEROON: A TORN COUNTRY
The second stop on the papal tour, Cameroon presents itself as a country torn apart by a conflict between the Francophone majority and the Anglophone minority.
Independent since 1960, the following year it absorbed the North-West and South-West provinces, previously under British rule. Until 1972, the regions were granted broad autonomy, but that year, the first President, Ahmadou Ahidjo, changed his mind: the central government took over most powers, limiting the local communities’ room to maneuver.
This policy did not change even under Paul Biya’s administration, who instead reacted harshly: while people in Bamenda protested peacefully (in 2016) demanding that English be taught in schools and Common Law be applied in courts, he sent in troops, causing the clash to radicalize.
As a result, the army and Ambazonian secessionists committed abuses against the population: hundreds of thousands fled to neighboring Nigeria to escape the massacres.
In this context, the stop in Bamenda (April 16) takes on a special meaning, and Leo’s words are highly poignant.
“The crisis that has devastated these regions of Cameroon has brought Christian and Muslim communities closer together than ever, so much so that your religious leaders have united and founded a Peace Movement, through which they seek to mediate between the opposing sides. Jesus tells us: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers!’ Woe, instead, to those who bend religions and the very name of God to their own military, economic, or political objectives, dragging what is holy into what is dirtiest and darkest. […] The warlords pretend not to know that it takes but a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild. They pretend not to see that it takes billions of dollars to kill and devastate, yet the necessary resources cannot be found to heal, to educate, to uplift. Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest a large part of the profits in weapons, in an endless spiral of destabilization and death. It is an upside-down world, a distortion of God’s creation that every honest conscience must denounce and repudiate, choosing that U-turn – conversion – that leads in the opposite direction, onto the sustainable and rich path of human fraternity. The world is being destroyed by a few rulers and is held up by a myriad of brothers and sisters in solidarity! They are the descendants of Abraham, countless as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Let us look into each other’s eyes: we are already this immense people! Peace is not to be invented: it is to be welcomed, by welcoming our neighbor as our brother and sister. No one chooses their brothers and sisters: we just have to accept each other! We are a single family and we live in the same home, this wonderful planet that ancient cultures have cared for over millennia.”
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ANGOLA: INEQUALITIES AND CORRUPTION
The third stop on the papal journey is Angola, a former Portuguese possession that gained independence after the “Carnation Revolution” (Lisbon, April 25, 1974). Immediately, the armed struggle to end the colonial era was replaced by another: the conflict between different independence movements.
The conflict soon became a proxy war between the great powers of the time: the USA and the USSR. Moscow sent its military advisors and Cuban soldiers; Washington supported South African and Zairean incursions.
Angola is a country exceedingly rich in strategic raw materials, and no one wanted them to fall into enemy hands. The turning point occurred at the end of the 1980s: with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and Apartheid, external actors withdrew, and the struggle continued among the Angolan parties, who finally laid down their arms at the end of the 1990s.
Born as a Marxist state, under the rule of José Eduardo dos Santos (1978 – 2017) it became an oligarchic regime that plundered all resources, enriching itself shamelessly.
(Isabel, the leader’s daughter, is considered the richest woman in Africa).
Taking this reality into account, the Pope, for example in the homily delivered on the esplanade of Kilamba (April 19), commenting on the Gospel of the disciples of Emmaus, said among other things:
“In this opening scene of the Gospel, I see the history of Angola reflected, of this beautiful and wounded country, which hungers and thirsts for hope, peace, and fraternity. Indeed, the conversation of the two disciples […] brings to mind the pain by which this country of yours has been marked: a long civil war with its trail of enmities and divisions, squandered resources, and poverty.
Dearest friends, the Good News of the Lord, for us today as well, is precisely this: He is alive, He is risen, and He walks by our side as we travel the road of suffering and bitterness, opening our eyes so that we can recognize His work and granting us the grace to start again and rebuild the future. […] The history of your country, the still-difficult consequences you endure, the social and economic problems, and the various forms of poverty call for the presence of a Church that knows how to walk alongside you and gather the cries of her children. A Church that, with the light of the Word and the nourishment of the Eucharist, knows how to revive lost hope. A Church made up of people like you who give themselves just as Jesus breaks bread for the two disciples of Emmaus. […] And just as the Eucharist reminds us that we are one body and one spirit, united in the one Lord, we too can and want to build a country where old divisions are overcome forever, where hatred and violence disappear, where the plague of corruption is healed by a new culture of justice and sharing. Only in this way will a future of hope be possible, especially for the many young people who have lost it.”
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EQUATORIAL GUINEA: THE PATRIARCH’S KINGDOM
The final stop of the papal tour is Equatorial Guinea, a small state, formerly a Spanish possession, nestled between Gabon and Cameroon, and bathed by the Gulf of Guinea.
The country, having gained independence in 1968, has been governed by two Presidents thus far: Francisco Macías Nguema for eleven years, followed by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who rose to power through a coup (1979).
Everything belongs to the presidential entourage, and every form of opposition is brutally crushed: prisoners, for example, are used for the construction of the new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, which is expected to soon replace Malabo.
Thus, in the meeting with young people that took place in Bata on April 22, the Pope said:
“The brightest light, here, is that of your eyes, your faces, your smiles, the songs, the dances, in which everything is a testimony that Christ is joy, meaning, inspiration, and beauty for our lives.
Your country is rich in history and traditions. We saw it a short while ago, in the dances, costumes, and symbols with which each group expressed its identity, making our time together even more evident and touching. […] It is the luminous and demanding legacy of which you, dear young people, are called to be, in faith, the foundation of your future and that of this Earth. The future is yours!”
Peace, unity, and future are the keywords of a magisterium—that of Leo in Africa—which is tied to the love God has for humanity, a love with which He accompanies it even in the most difficult trials, such as those experienced by millions of Africans suffering an oppression that seems endless. This continent is the youngest in the world, yet it is governed by rapacious elites who suck its resources dry, keeping it in underdevelopment.
By encouraging the people to build their future, Leo invites them to commit themselves to building a new Africa that knows its roots but also knows how to imagine tomorrow.
PIER LUIGI GIACOMONI
