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Leo is the third pontiff to visit the fossil fuel-rich country after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 18 Apr 2026<\/span>18 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Pope Leo XIV is set to arrive in Angola on the third leg of a landmark African tour that has unfolded alongside an escalating war of words with United States President Donald Trump over the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n Leo, the third pontiff to visit the fossil fuel-rich country after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009, is expected to arrive at 3pm local time (14:00 GMT) on Saturday in the capital, Luanda, where billboards bearing his image have been erected to welcome him.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The pope, who visited Cameroon for three days before flying to Luanda, is also slated to meet Angola\u2019s President Joao Lourenco and deliver a speech in the country, where about 44 percent of the population identifies as Catholic.<\/p>\n Leo\u2019s increasingly forceful calls for world peace are likely to resonate in Angola, which emerged in 2002 from a 27-year civil war that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975.<\/p>\n Throughout his Africa visit, the first pope from the US has issued pointed warnings about corruption, the exploitation of the continent\u2019s vast resources and the dangers of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n The pope\u2019s Africa visit has also been marked by a clash with Trump, who has called the 70-year-old head of the Catholic Church \u201cweak on crime\u201d and \u201cterrible for foreign policy\u201d. Trump had also shared what appeared to be an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, prompting a backlash from leaders across the religious spectrum.<\/p>\n The pope had responded by saying he was not afraid of Trump and that he would continue to speak out against war, marking a rare public clash between a pontiff and a sitting US president.<\/p>\n Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said he had the right to disagree with the pontiff. \u201cI have no disagreement with the fact the pope can say what he wants, and I want him to say what he wants, but I can disagree,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After US Vice President JD Vance urged the Vatican to \u201cstick to matters of morality\u201d, Leo said on Thursday that the world was \u201cbeing ravaged by a handful of tyrants\u201d and intensified criticism of those using religion to justify war.<\/p>\n During his stop in Cameroon, Leo also urged the country\u2019s leaders to tackle corruption and condemned \u201cthose who, in the name of profit, continue to seize the African continent to exploit and plunder it\u201d.<\/p>\n Leo\u2019s warnings against corruption and exploitation may resonate in Angola, where one-third of the population lives below the poverty line despite vast fossil fuel reserves.<\/p>\n On Sunday, he will celebrate an open-air Mass in Kilamba, outside Luanda, before travelling by helicopter to Muxima, home to a 16th-century church and major pilgrimage site.<\/p>\n On Monday, Leo is due to travel to Saurimo to visit a retirement home and hold another Mass. He will then fly to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of his 18,000km (11,185-mile) African tour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Leo is the third pontiff to visit the fossil fuel-rich country after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 Pope Leo XIV is set to arrive in Angola on the third leg of a landmark African tour that has unfolded alongside an escalating war of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Stick to matters of morality\u2019<\/h2>\n
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