Overview
- Pope Leo XIV begins the April 13–23 visit Monday, crossing Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea to focus global attention on a continent that now hosts more than a fifth of the world’s Catholics.
- In Algeria, a first papal stop, he will visit the Great Mosque of Algiers, meet President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and highlight interfaith ties as rights groups urge him to raise the treatment of religious minorities.
- In Cameroon, he will lead a Bamenda “meeting for peace” in the Anglophone region, where fighting since 2017 has killed thousands and uprooted large numbers of people.
- In Angola and Equatorial Guinea, he is expected to press for fair sharing of natural-resource wealth and will pray in Bata at the military barracks site of the 2021 explosions that killed more than 100 people.
- Church-run aid in Cameroon and Angola has already shrunk after USAID reductions, with Catholic Relief Services ending key displacement and refugee programs in 2025, increasing pressure on local parishes and charities.