Celebrating Mass before an estimated 100,000 people outside the capital of Angola on Sunday, Pope Leo praised the ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah as a “sign of hope” that he prayed would bring peace permanently to the Middle East.
Leo mentioned the conflict as he called on Angolans to denounce the exploitation of their mineral-rich land and people, who still bear the scars of a brutal, post-independence civil war.
“We wish to build a country where old divisions are overcome once and for all, where hatred and violence disappear, and where the scourge of corruption is healed by a new culture of justice and sharing,” Leo said.
The American pope is on an African odyssey that will take him to an epicentre of the African slave trade with a history emblematic of the Catholic Church’s role in forcing human bondage, and what some scholars say is the Holy See’s continued refusal to fully acknowledge it and atone for it.
