Pope Leo XIV arrived in Angola on Saturday with a message that rattled governments and resonated across the continent: Africa has given enough. In his first public remarks to Angolan authorities in Luanda, the first US-born pope in history condemned the “logic of extractivism” that has left African nations rich in resources yet poor in development, calling for a decisive break from centuries of exploitation.
“You know well that all too often people have looked — and continue to look — to your lands in order to give, or, more commonly, in order to take,” Leo told President Joao Lourenço and assembled officials. “It is necessary to break this cycle of interests, which reduces reality, and even life itself, to mere commodities.”
A Pilgrimage Through History
Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, only to plunge immediately into a civil war that raged for 27 years and killed more than half a million people. The conflict was a Cold War proxy, with the United States and apartheid South Africa backing one faction, while the Soviet Union and Cuba supported the other. Angola’s people emerged from that ordeal in 2002 to find their country still bearing the scars of division — and still coping with the knowledge that their land holds extraordinary wealth that has mostly benefited outsiders.
The country is now Africa’s fourth-largest oil producer and the world’s third-largest diamond producer, with significant deposits of gold and critical minerals sought after globally. Yet the World Bank estimated in 2023 that more than 30 percent of Angola’s 38 million people lived on less than .15 a day.
Leo — who arrived from Cameroon, the second stop on a four-nation African tour — spoke directly to that paradox. “How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic of extractivism!” he declared. “At every level, we see how it sustains a model of development that discriminates and excludes, while still presuming to impose itself as the only viable option.”
The Shadow of Past Corruption
The pontiff’s words landed against the backdrop of Angola’s deeply entrenched corruption challenges. His predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos, ruled for 38 years until 2017, and is accused of diverting billions of dollars in oil revenue to his family while millions lived in poverty. President Lourenço, who succeeded him, has claimed that at least 4 billion was stolen or misappropriated during the dos Santos era.
In Cameroon two days earlier, Leo had railed against the “chains of corruption” hindering development and the “handful of tyrants” ravaging the Earth with war and exploitation. His Angola address built on that theme, naming extractivism directly as the engine of Africa’s persistent inequality.
A Contested Church at a Contested Site
The highlight of Leo’s Angola visit is scheduled for Sunday: a pilgrimage to Muxima, south of Luanda. The Church of Our Lady of Muxima was built by Portuguese colonizers at the end of the 16th century as part of a fortress complex that served as a hub in the transatlantic slave trade. More than 5 million enslaved Africans were shipped out of Angola — more than from any other country — and the Muxima church stands as a stark reminder of the intimate connection between Christian institutions and the exploitation of the continent.
Angola today is around 58 percent Catholic. Leo, whose ancestry includes both enslaved people and slave owners according to genealogical research, will pray the rosary at Muxima in recognition of a site that became a major Catholic pilgrimage destination after believers reported an appearance by the Virgin Mary around 1833.
Leo XIV’s African tour — which will also include Equatorial Guinea — is the longest papal trip abroad since his election. It comes at a moment of intense global scrutiny over the continent’s relationship with outside powers. For Angola, the pope’s visit offered something rarer still: global attention focused not on its oil or its diamonds, but on the lived reality of a people who have endured colonial theft, civil war, and corruption — and who continue to insist that their story deserves a different ending.