LUANDA (AFP) — Pope Leo XIV visited Angola’s remote, diamond-rich northeast Monday, highlighting poverty in a region rich in natural resources.
On the eighth day of his Africa tour, Leo flew to Saurimo, 800 kilometers east of the capital, and the capital of Lunda Sul province near the Catoca diamond mine, which produces roughly 75 percent of Angola’s diamonds.
The pope held an open-air mid-morning mass expected to draw 30,000 people and later visited a home for the elderly, emphasizing the Church’s support for the province’s poor infrastructure.
“How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are caused by this logic of exploitation,” Leo told officials, including President Joao Lourenco, criticizing rampant resource extraction.
Later Monday, he was scheduled to meet clergy to discuss challenges facing the Church in Angola, including resource shortages and growing evangelicism.
Leo XIV is the third pope to visit Angola, after John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009. At a mass Sunday attended by 100,000 people, he urged the nation to overcome divisions and combat corruption.
His 11-day, 18,000-kilometer African tour began in Algeria and Cameroon and concludes in Equatorial Guinea 21 to 23 April.