In his first speech on arrival in Luanda, the capital of Angola, Pope Leo called on the state authorities to “put the common good before partisan interests, never confusing your part for the whole.” He also denounced the “powerful interests” from outside that lay their hands on the country’s rich resources and cause suffering, deaths and environmental damage with their “extractive logic” and also promote a development model “that discriminates and excludes, while still presuming to impose itself as the only viable option.”

Pope Leo arrived at Luanda’s international airport in the early afternoon on April 18, after a 2.5-hour flight from Younde, Cameroon. He was greeted by Angola’s president, João Lourenço, and given a state welcome with 21 gun salute, guard of honor, and the playing of the national anthems of the Vatican and Angola. He is the third pope to come to this oil and mineral rich country. St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI also visited.

Angolans lined the route and cheered as he traveled from the airport to the presidential palace in Luanda, which has 10 million inhabitants, one quarter of Angola’s total population. He had a private conversation at the palace with the president, who then accompanied him to the palace’s Protocol Pavillion to address 400 representatives from the state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps.

“I come as a pilgrim to meet your people and who seeks the signs of the passage of God in this land so beloved by him,” Leo told them, speaking in Portuguese in this majority Christian country where about two-fifths of the population are Catholic.

“I wish to meet you in the gift of peace,” he said. He noted that Angolans “possess treasures that cannot be bought or stolen,” especially “a joy that not even the most adverse circumstances have been able to extinguish a joy that also knows pain, indignation, disappointments and defeats, endures but is reborn among those who have kept their hearts and minds free from the deception of wealth.”

But looking at the way this country and region has been plundered for its natural resources, particularly oil and gas, but also oil, diamonds, various minerals, and timber, Pope Leo said, “you know well that too often your regions have been – and continue to be – looked upon as a source to give, or more often to take something.”

 “We must break the chain of interests that reduces reality and life itself to commodities of exchange,” the pope said.  He did not mention any country; but in the past Portugal was the colonising power, and in recent years China has drawn heavily on the natural resources of this land while at the same time making major investments in infrastructure. Angola is seen as a strategic partner. China does not come with gunboats; it comes with money that opens many doors.

“Africa is a source of joy and hope for the entire world,” Pope Leo said; he referred to these qualities as “political” virtues—because its young people and its poor “still dream, still hope, are not content with what already exists, and long to rise up, prepare themselves for great responsibilities, and take an active role.”

Then alluding to the effects of some 20 years of civil war between the Marxist MPLA movement supported by Russia and Cuba, and UNITA, the anti-communist movement supported by the West, which ended in 2002, Pope Leo said, “the wisdom of a people, in fact, cannot be extinguished by any ideology, and truly the desire for the infinite that dwells in the human heart is a principle of social transformation deeper than any political or cultural program.”

He told them, “I am here, among you, at the service of the best energies that animate the people and communities, of which Angola is a colourful mosaic.” He explained that he wanted “to listen and to encourage all those who have chosen goodness, justice, peace, tolerance and reconciliation.”  At the same time, he said, “together with millions of men and women [in this country]… I also intend to call for the conversion of those who choose opposite paths and prevent harmonious and fraternal development.”

Pope Leo drew attention “the material riches upon which powerful interests lay their claim, even within your own country,” referring to exploiting its natural resources, and denounced the “much suffering,” “many deaths,” and “many social and cultural catastrophes” that “this extractive logic has brought in its wake.” He remarked, “We see everywhere now how it fuels a model of development that discriminates and excludes yet still claims to be the only one possible.”

He recalled that Angolans “have suffered every time that harmony has been violated by the arrogance of some” and “bear the scars of both material exploitation and the attempt to impose one idea over others.”

According to the African Development Bank, despite significant oil wealth, income inequality is high in Angola. The country ranks 148 out of 193 countries in the 2023 Human Development Index. Poverty incidence stands at 40.6 percent and is driven by a lack of jobs and critical social infrastructure.

The Augustinian missionary pope declared, “Africa has urgent need to overcome situations and phenomena of conflict and hostility that tear apart the social and political fabric of so many countries, fuelling poverty and exclusion.”  He reminded them, “life flourishes only through encounter” and “this begins with dialogue.” This path, however, “does not exclude dissent that can turn into conflict.”

Addressing the state authorities present, including the president, in a country that is experiencing political instability, social unrest because of rising prices, student protests, curtailment of press freedom, human rights violations, as elections loom in 2027, Pope Leo told them, “Angola can grow greatly if, first and foremost, you who hold authority in the country believe in the diversity of its riches, do not fear dissent, do not stifle the visions of the young or the dreams of the elderly, and learn to manage conflicts by transforming them into paths of renewal.” 

He called on them, “Put the common good before partisan interests, never confusing your part for the whole.”  If they do that he said, history will vindicate them, even if some will remain hostile.

He reminded them that “the joy and hope” that characterize young people “are an intense and expansive force that counters all resignation and the temptation to withdraw.”

He noted that “despots and tyrants of body and spirit seek to render souls passive and passions sorrowful, prone to inertia, docile and enslaved to power.” He reminded them that “in sorrow, we are in fact at the mercy of our fears and our phantoms” and we take refuge in fanaticism, in submission, in media clamour, in the mirage of gold, in the myth of identity.” He told them that “discontent, a sense of powerlessness, and rootlessness separate us, rather than bringing us together, spreading a climate of alienation from the public sphere, contempt for the misfortune of others, and the denial of all fraternity.” He said “such discord disrupts the fundamental relationships that each person maintains with oneself, with others, and with reality.”

He remarked that for despots and tyrants, “the best way to dominate and advance without limits is to sow a lack of hope and stir up constant mistrust, even if masked by the defence of certain values.” Leo noted that “in many countries, today the political mechanism of exasperation, exacerbation,and polarization is being used”  but, he said, “true joy frees us from this alienation; and it is no coincidence that faith recognizes it as a gift of the Holy Spirit.”

He said, “joy knows how to carve out paths even in the darkest areas of stagnation and distress.”

He invited people to “examine our hearts” because, he said, “without joy there is no renewal, without encounter there is no politics, with the other there is no justice.”

He sought to encourage the Angolans by telling them “together, you can make Angola a beacon of hope” and, he assured them that the Catholic Church “wishes to be the leaven in the dough, and to foster the growth of a just model of coexistence, free from the forms of slavery imposed.” 

He called for the removal of “obstacles to integral human development” by working together “with those whom the world has cast aside, but whom God has chosen.”

After the encounter with the state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps, Pope Leo went to the nunciature for a private meeting with Angola’s Catholic bishops. Tomorrow he will travel 17 miles south of Luanda to the city of Kilamba, built by the Chinese, and there celebrate Mass for a very large crowd of people.

Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.