Build hope, Pope tells Angolans

Luanda: Pope Leo XIV has addressed tens of thousands of faithful near Angola’s capital, urging the country to overcome “divisions” and “corruption” during a landmark tour of Africa.

Speaking at an open-air Mass on Sunday in Kilamba on the outskirts of Luanda, Leo addressed the civil war-scarred past he said has brought “enmity and division, squandered resources and poverty”. “Today, there is a need to look to the future with hope and to build that hope. Do not be afraid to do so,” Leo said.

The pontiff arrived in the Portuguese-speaking nation on Saturday for the third leg of a four-nation tour of the continent, which began in Algeria and Cameroon and will also include a stop in Equatorial Guinea.

At a meeting with Angolan officials, including President Joao Lourenco, Leo spoke out against the “suffering” and social and environmental “disasters” caused by the rampant exploitation of natural resources. The pontiff’s rhetoric has put him at odds with Donald Trump. Travelling from Cameroon to Angola on Saturday, Leo also said he has no interest in starting “a new debate” with the US president.

Pope said he was not seeking to debate Donald Trump when he criticised “tyrants” for spending billions on wars in a speech earlier this week. The pontiff said the remarks, delivered days after a high-profile spat with the US president, had been written a fortnight earlier – “well before the president ever commented on myself”.

“And yet as it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate, again, the president, which is not in my interest at all,” he told reporters aboard a flight to Angola.