LUANDA, Angola (AP) — Pope Leo XIV arrived in Angola on Saturday, hoping to bring a message of joy and encouragement to its long-suffering people, as he opened the third leg of his four-nation trip through Africa.

Leo’s plane touched down at Luanda’s international airport after the flight from Yaounde, Cameroon, where he celebrated a morning Mass before an estimated 200,000 people.

En route, he had further comments about his ongoing back-and-forth with U.S. President Donald Trump over the Iran war, which began on Feb. 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes followed by Tehran's retaliation. Leo said that it was “not in my interest at all” to debate the president, but that he would continue preaching the Gospel message of peace.

In Cameroon, Leo sought to encourage young people to have hope and demanded that elites stop exploiting the land and its people for profit. It’s a message he was expected to echo in Angola, another mineral-rich former European colony where many of the people live in poverty.

In his homily Saturday, delivered in French, Leo said that the respect for human dignity was a cornerstone of every society.

“For this reason, every community has the obligation to create and sustain structures of solidarity and mutual aid in which, when faced with crises — be they social, political, medical or economic — everyone can give and receive assistance according to their own capacity and needs,” he said.

A scarred Angola welcomes the pope

In Angola, Leo will meet with President Joao Lourenco and deliver his first speech before Angolan government authorities.

Angola, a southern African country of around 38 million, gained independence from Portugal in 1975. But it still bears the scars of a devastating civil war that began straight after independence, and raged on and off for 27 years before finally ending in 2002. More than 500,000 people are believed to have been killed.

For years, the civil war was a Cold War proxy conflict, with the United States and apartheid South Africa backing one side and the Soviet Union and Cuba backing the other.

Source: WPLG