Pope Leo XIV has begun a 10-day tour of Africa, visiting 4 international locations in a mission to attract world consideration to the continent the place greater than a fifth of the world’s Catholics reside.
The pope’s itinerary will take him to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, masking almost 18,000 kilometres throughout 11 cities and cities by way of 18 flights.
In accordance with Michael Czerny, a senior official on the Vatican, the journey is meant “to assist flip the world’s consideration to Africa”.
Leo, the primary US-born pope, has made restricted overseas journeys since his election final Might, beforehand visiting Turkey, Lebanon and Monaco. At 70, he’s endeavor some of the complicated papal excursions in a long time.
Africa accounts for greater than 20% of the worldwide Catholic inhabitants, with the three sub-Saharan international locations on the tour having majority Catholic populations.
Nonetheless, Algeria stays overwhelmingly Muslim, with fewer than 10,000 Catholics amongst its roughly 48 million individuals. The go to marks the primary time the nation will host a Catholic pope.
The tour is the twenty fourth papal go to to Africa because the late Sixties and is predicted to deal with a variety of points.
Matteo Bruni mentioned the pope will ship 25 speeches in the course of the go to, bearing on matters comparable to pure useful resource exploitation, interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims, and political corruption.
In Cameroon, one of many tour’s key stops, about 600,000 individuals are anticipated to attend a Mass within the coastal metropolis of Douala on Friday.
Leo is predicted to ship remarks in a number of languages, together with Italian, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
The go to begins in Algeria, the place the pope will meet political leaders and go to the Nice Mosque of Algiers, solely his second mosque go to since changing into pope.
He may even journey to Annaba to go to the ruins of Hippo, a website linked to St Augustine, whose teachings affect the Augustinian order to which Leo belongs.
The tour is predicted to focus on each the alternatives and challenges going through Africa, whereas reinforcing the Catholic Church’s rising presence on the continent.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
Times Nigeria