rome —
On Monday, Pope Leo XIV will embark on a long trip to Africa, the first papacy to bear a distinctly personal stamp.
From April 13th to April 23rd, the Pope will visit four countries, crisscrossing a continent of vital importance to the 21st century church he leads. Relations between Christianity and Islam will be a priority for him.
The visit comes as America’s first pope has increasingly spoken out against the current Middle East conflict, saying God cannot be used to justify war, while US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has framed the US war effort as divinely supported. Leo’s decision to visit Algeria, a Muslim-majority country, to address interfaith relations also signals that he will become a diplomatic counterweight to the Trump administration and its military intervention in Iran.
Africa is a continent where the Catholic Church is growing, and the Church frequently plays an influential role in civil society through support for education, health care, and conflict mediation. Catholics on the continent now make up about 20% of the world’s believers, according to Vatican statistics.
Leo XIV knows Africa well, having spent years as a missionary in the Global South. As pope, he appointed a priest from Nigeria to a senior position in the Vatican.
His itinerary includes Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea and will take him on 18 flights, including two by helicopter, covering 11,185 miles, or approximately 18,000 kilometers. The schedule is likely to be difficult even for the pontiff, who is relatively young at 70 and known for exercising regularly. Although the countries he visits are diverse, his itinerary and plans during his stay demonstrate a consistent theme of Leo as a bridge builder and reconciler.
“Pope Leo’s visit to Africa will provide him with a unique opportunity to listen to the voices of African Catholics and learn first-hand the realities of their daily lives,” said the Rev. Agbonkianmege Olobator, a Jesuit priest from Nigeria who led the order’s communities across Africa from 2017 to 2023 and is currently based at Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California.
Leo will begin his African marathon visit from Algeria, becoming the first pope to set foot on that country’s soil. Distrust of Western culture and Christianity remains high in Algeria, much of it related to the country’s French colonial past, and the country’s Catholic population is small at around 8,000. Christians there often face difficulties.
The pope’s presence should be a boost for the Algerian Catholic Church, which is known for working closely with the country’s Muslims while emphasizing Algeria’s ancient Christian roots.
“(In Algeria) Christianity still has memories of a repressive past,” the Rev. Martin Magee, a Benedictine monk and an expert on Algerian Christian-Muslim relations, told CNN.
“Pope Leo will also seek to strengthen relations between Christians and Muslims. Since independence from France in 1962, the small remnant of the Catholic Church in Algeria has consistently strived to break down the walls between Christian and Muslim believers,” he added.
Bishop Diego Sario Cucarella, who heads Algeria’s La Guahua diocese, told CNN that the country’s church is not one of “numbers or visibility,” but “a church with an unarmed, unarmed presence.”
“In a world where there is often fear and misunderstanding between religions and cultures, our experience here suggests that another path is possible,” he said. “There is a strong sense of hospitality in Algerian society, and many will perceive him (the pope) not as a foreign leader, but as a man of peace, a brother seeking peace with his fellow citizens.”
Leo will also make a very moving pilgrimage in Algeria, taking a day trip to the city of Annaba, where St. Augustine of Hippo was bishop in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. St. Augustine, one of the most influential figures in Christianity, is the inspiration for the Augustinian Order, of which Leo is a member and former leader.
Michel Guillot, Bishop of Constantine and Hippo, who visited Algeria twice before Leo was elected pope, said the connection with Augustine created a “closeness between this pope and the Algerian people” in a country that is a “bridge” between the African continent, the Arab-Islamic world and “the other side of the Mediterranean world”.
“Algeria is the ‘son of Augustine’, so it’s like welcoming one of its own sons,” he told CNN.
The other African countries Leo visits have large and growing Catholic populations. During his trip, he will see vibrant churches up close, celebrate outdoor masses, and visit nursing homes, prisons, university campuses, and psychiatric hospitals. A Vatican spokesperson said “600,000 faithful” were expected to attend the Mass that Leo would preside over in a parking lot next to the Japoma Stadium in Douala, Cameroon.
While in Cameroon, Leo will focus on a message of reconciliation in a country where the English-speaking minority is protesting perceived discrimination by the Francophone government. The pope is scheduled to visit Bamenda, the country’s largest English-speaking city, to participate in a peace conference. The meeting will be attended by families of internally displaced persons, traditional leaders of the Mankong people, a prominent ethnic group in the region, Catholic nuns, imams and other church leaders.
Bamenda has been at the center of a long-running conflict between government forces and Anglophone separatists that has left thousands of people dead, including civilians, since 2017.
“Many people around the world pay little or no attention to the conflict and violence that has disrupted socio-economic life and caused intolerable human costs in the English-speaking north-west and south-west of Cameroon. His visit to Bamenda is particularly poignant,” said Santa Clara University’s Orobator.
“Leo is perhaps the only religious leader with the soft power to bring belligerent and hostile forces to the table for dialogue and seek a just peace. This is a unique opportunity for him to remind Cameroonians that there is an alternative to conflict and violence.”
Foreign visits give the pope an opportunity to address national leaders and spotlight specific issues. While in Angola, Leo will fly to the city of Saurimo, the center of the country’s controversial diamond industry, where he will celebrate an open-air mass.
The diamond industry contributes significantly to the economy, but concerns have been raised about its impact on the environment and the treatment of miners. Leo has spoken about the importance of protecting the planet during his papacy, and environmental stewardship could be a topic of discussion in Angola and other parts of Africa.
“By modeling peace as a ‘humbling and disarming’ force, the pope is not only drawing global attention to the region’s suffering, but also positioning the African Church as a trusted intermediary for reconciliation,” said Jaycee A. Joseph, a theologian at Villanova University, Pope Leo’s alma mater.
Leo’s trip to Africa will be his longest period outside the Vatican since his election, but his frequent travels around the country are reminiscent of his days working as a missionary and bishop in Latin America.
It is fitting that Equatorial Guinea, a small country with a majority Catholic population and around 70% living in poverty, will mark the first anniversary of the death of former Pope Francis on April 21st. Leo’s visit, the first papal visit to the country since 1982, will implement Francis’ vision of a church that reaches remote areas and serves the poorest people.
The pope’s busy schedule in Equatorial Guinea includes a visit to a prison and a seaside memorial to the victims of a series of explosions at military barracks in 2021. President Teodoro Obiang and his government said the explosion was the result of “negligence” and a fire set by nearby farmers, but human rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the explosion.
From the moment of his election, Leo has sought to provide divisive leadership. His whirlwind trip to Africa aims to put that vision into practice on the continent.
