Dame Sarah Mullally, the first female head of the Church of England, had a private discussion with Pope Leo during the trip.
Pope Leo wrapped up his 10-day four-nation tour of Africa in Equatorial Guinea.
Pope Leo XIV visited a prison in Equatorial Guinea on the last day of his Africa tour.
Equatorial Guinea's prison conditions face scrutiny as Pope Leo pushes for humane treatment and reforms during his visit.
The Pope gives a frank and passionate speech, the likes of which have characterised his tour of Africa.
Pope Leo arrived in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday on the fourth and final leg of his Africa journey, and denounced the “colonisation” of Africa’s minerals and the “lust for power” in a country whose repressive leader has been in office since 1979. Adoring crowds in the largely Catholic country lined the road from the airport into the administrative capital, Malabo, cheering the first pope to visit since St John Paul II in 1982. Wearing his formal red mozzetta cape, Leo thrilled the flag-waving...
Pope Leo lamented during an event in Angola on Monday that many people in the world were being “exploited by authoritarians and defrauded by the rich”, the latest example of a forceful new speaking style he has adopted on his four-nation Africa tour. The first US pope, who has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump with his more outspoken comments, told worshippers at a Mass in Saurimo, near the Democratic Republic of Congo border, that violence and oppression went against the Christian...
Pope Leo on Sunday recalled the “sorrow and great suffering” Angolans endured for centuries, as the American pope prayed at a Catholic shrine located at the site of an important hub of the African slave trade during Portugal’s colonial rule. Leo travelled to the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima, nestled in the Angolan savannahs of baobab trees at the edge of the Kwanza River. It became a major pilgrimage destination after believers reported an appearance by the Virgin Mary around 1833. But the Church of...
On the third leg of his Africa tour, Leo urges Angola to move beyond "divisions" created by its war-scarred past.
Pope Leo sought to downplay his feud with US President Donald Trump on Saturday, saying reporting about comments he has made so far during his Africa tour “has not been accurate in all its aspects”. Speaking to reporters in English aboard his flight to Angola for the third leg of his ambitious 10-day Africa tour, the first US pope said comments he made two days earlier in Cameroon decrying that the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not aimed at Trump. That speech, said...
Leo is the third pontiff to visit the fossil fuel-rich country after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009.
Pope, in Cameroon, calls for 'decisive change of course' that leads away from conflict and the exploitation of the land.
Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, in unusually forceful remarks in Cameroon on Thursday after US President Donald Trump attacked him again on social media. Leo, the first US pope, also decried leaders who used religious language to justify wars and urged a “decisive change of course” in a meeting in the biggest city in Cameroon’s anglophone regions, where a simmering conflict going back nearly a decade has left...
The comments follow a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump, who called the Pope weak on crime.
Far too many world leaders have chosen to mollify the bullying US president. Pope Leo has shown there's another way.
Huge crowds have greeted Pope Leo in Cameroon, returning to a country he visited 20 years ago as ‘Father Bob’.
Pope Leo has said the world needs to hear a message of peace and coexistence, after US President Donald Trump attacked him for a second time this week on social media. Speaking on Wednesday during his flight from Algeria to Cameroon for the second leg of a whirlwind 10-day Africa tour, the first US pontiff urged respect for all people and said his travels so far had shown the importance of pursuing dialogue between different communities. “Although we have different beliefs, we have different...
The US Vice-President was speaking at a Turning Point USA event, where he said Pope Leo should "be careful when he talks about matters of theology."
The US president accuses Leo of being "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy".
The pope will also visit Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea during his 11-day trip to the continent.
Leo, who last year became the first US-born pope, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
US President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo on social media on Sunday, saying the first American pope should “stop catering to the Radical Left”. It was an extraordinary broadside against the global leader of the Catholic Church, exacerbating a feud that began over the war in Iran. “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote on social media. He also wrote that “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon”. A short time later,...
In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo on Saturday denounced the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fuelling the US-Israel war on Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica on the same day the US and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held. History’s first US-born pope did not mention the United States or President Donald Trump in his prayer, which was planned before the...
The Pentagon and the Vatican denied allegations of a rift following Pope Leo’s criticism of the Trump administration and a news report of a contentious meeting between a papal envoy and a top US defence official. In separate statements, the two sides both professed an eagerness to get along, saying the meeting that occurred in January was frank but polite. The Defence Department issued a statement that said “we have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy...
Pope Leo condemned Trump’s threats that Iran’s “civilisation will die”, calling the remarks “unacceptable".
Pope Leo celebrated his first Easter Mass as pontiff with a call on Sunday to lay down arms and seek peace to global conflicts through dialogue, but he departed from a tradition of listing the world’s woes by name in the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. Leo, the first US-born pope, emphasised Easter’s message of hope as a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection after being crucified, in both the blessing and his homily. “Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his...
Pope Leo lifted a wooden cross and held it aloft from his waist at the start of the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on his first Good Friday as pontiff, marking the first time in decades that a pope has set out to carry the cross to every station. “I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader in the world today, and for this voice, that everyone wants to hear, that says Christ still suffers,” Leo told reporters this week...