COURAGE TO CHANGE
The US-born pope concluded his three-day visit to Cameroon with an open-air mass at Yaounde airport before 200,000 people.
In his homily delivered in French, he thanked the people of Cameroon and urged the crowd to have “the courage to change habits and structures”, in a country ruled with an iron fist by 93-year-old Paul Biya since 1982.
Throughout his 11-day four-nation Africa visit, which started in Algeria, he has delivered pointed warnings against corruption, the plunder of the continent’s resources and the dangers of artificial intelligence.
They are warnings that are likely to strike a chord in oil-rich Angola.
Despite its wealth of resources, around a third of the population of 36.6 million people lives below the international poverty line of $2.15 per day, according to the World Bank.
The economy is heavily dependent on oil, leaving it exposed to price fluctuations, while corruption is reportedly rampant.
Around 15 million people in the Portuguese-speaking country, about 44 per cent of the population, identify as Catholic.
Leo is the third pontiff to visit the country, after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009.
NEEDS OF THE YOUTH
“There is a lot of suffering, a lot of poverty in Angola. I hope the pope will see with his own eyes the needs of the youth here,” said Antonio Masaidi, a 33-year-old engineer.
On Sunday, Leo will celebrate a giant open-air mass in Kilamba on Luanda’s outskirts.
In the afternoon, he will travel by helicopter to the village of Muxima, about 130 kilometres southeast of Luanda, home to a 16th-century church that has become one of southern Africa’s most important pilgrimage sites.
On April 20, he is due to travel more than 800 kilometres from the capital to visit a retirement home in Saurimo and celebrate another mass before departing the following morning.
Leo will then fly to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of his whirlwind 18,000-kilometre tour.