The Vatican on Monday unveiled the itinerary for Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit to four African nations, highlighting themes such as fostering Christian-Muslim relations, offering support to victims of violence, and strengthening Catholic communities in former European colonies.
The April 13–23 journey will take the pontiff to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.
The tour will commence in Algeria, marking the first time a pope has visited the country.
During his stay in the capital, Algiers, Leo is scheduled to tour the Great Mosque, engage with government officials, and meet members of the local Catholic community. He will also travel east to Annaba, historically known as Hippo, where St. Augustine lived and died in 430.
There, the pope will meet Augustinian clergy and visit an archaeological site linked to the influential early Christian theologian.
He is also expected to celebrate Mass at a basilica dedicated to St. Augustine in Algiers.
From Algeria, the pope will continue to Cameroon, following in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the country in 2009. Leo’s itinerary includes stops in Yaoundé, Douala and Bamenda.
The visit comes amid ongoing unrest in Cameroon’s western regions, where English-speaking separatists have been fighting since 2017 to form an independent state.
The violence has resulted in more than 6,000 deaths and displaced over 600,000 people, according to the International Crisis Group.
A central moment of the Cameroon leg will be a “peace meeting” led by the pope in Bamenda on April 16, although details about participants have not been disclosed.
The country also faces security challenges in the north due to Boko Haram’s cross-border insurgency.
However, the visit has stirred political sensitivities, with some critics fearing it could be used to legitimize the current administration. In an open letter, Cameroonian Jesuit priest and activist Ludovic Lado cautioned that the visit could be “interpreted as an implicit form of endorsement of a discredited and illegitimate government.”
President Paul Biya, 92, who has ruled Cameroon for 42 years, was declared the winner of the most recent presidential election, extending his tenure by another seven years. His main opponent, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, continues to contest the outcome, insisting he is the rightful winner.
The pope’s next destination is Angola, a predominantly Christian nation in southern Africa with strong historical ties to Portugal. Catholicism remains the largest religious group in the country, reflecting its colonial past. Angola gained independence in 1975 but endured a prolonged civil war that ended in 2002.
While in Angola, Leo will visit Luanda, Muxima and Saurimo. A key highlight will be his stop at the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima, one of the country’s most important pilgrimage sites, located within the Church of Our Lady of Muxima. Built in the late 16th century by Portuguese settlers, the site was historically linked to the trans-Atlantic human trade, serving as a place where enslaved individuals were baptized before being transported to the Americas.
The final leg of the pope’s tour will take place in Equatorial Guinea, where approximately 70% of the population identifies as Catholic. The Church continues to play a central role in the country, a legacy of Spanish colonial rule. Although officially secular, Catholic traditions are integrated into national ceremonies, including Independence Day observances.
Leo’s visit—following Pope St. John Paul II’s 1982 trip—will include stops in Malabo, Bata and Mongomo. In Bata, the pope plans to meet prison inmates and pray at a memorial dedicated to victims of a 2021 explosion at a military barracks that claimed more than 100 lives. The incident was attributed to the negligent handling of dynamite near residential areas.
Equatorial Guinea remains under the leadership of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has governed since 1982 and is widely regarded as Africa’s longest-serving head of state. The country’s Catholic community previously faced severe repression under former President Francisco Macías Nguema, who shut down churches in 1975 and banned the Catholic Church in 1978 in an effort to remove colonial influence. The ban was lifted after Obiang seized power.
Despite significant oil and gas resources, poverty remains widespread in Equatorial Guinea, with the World Bank estimating that at least 57% of the population lives below the poverty line.
