Pope Leo Holy Mass,  Mongomo 22.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Equatorial Guinea 

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are gathered in this magnificent Cathedral Basilica, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, Mother of the Incarnate Word and Patroness of Equatorial Guinea, to listen to the Lord’s word and to celebrate the memorial that he has left us as the source and summit of the Church’s life and mission. The Eucharist truly contains every spiritual good of the Church: it is Christ, our Passover, who gives himself to us, he is the living Bread that nourishes us. His presence in the Eucharist reveals God’s infinite love for the entire human family and the way he encounters every woman and every man even today.

I am pleased to be able to celebrate with you and give thanks to the Lord for these 170 years of evangelization in Equatorial Guinea. It is a fitting occasion to recall all the good that the Lord has done, and at the same time, I wish to express my gratitude to the many missionaries, diocesan priests, catechists and lay faithful who have devoted their lives in service to the Gospel.

They have taken up the aspirations, questions and wounds of your people, and illuminated them with the Lord’s word, becoming themselves a sign of God’s love among you. Through the example of their lives, they have played their part in bringing about the Kingdom of God, unafraid of suffering for their fidelity to Christ.

It is a history that you must never forget. On the one hand, it links you to the universal and apostolic Church that came before you. On the other, it has made you protagonists in proclaiming the Gospel and bearing witness to the faith, fulfilling the prophetic words spoken by Pope Saint Paul VI on African soil: “Africans, from now on, you are missionaries to yourselves. The Church of Christ is well and truly planted in this blessed soil” (Homily at the Conclusion of the Symposium Organized by the Bishops of Africa, Kampala, Uganda 31 July 1969).

With this in mind, you are called upon today to follow in the footsteps of the missionaries, pastors and laypeople who have gone before you. Each and every one of you is invited to make a personal commitment that encompasses your entire life, so that the faith — celebrated so joyfully in your communities and in your liturgies — may also nourish your charitable works and the sense of responsibility toward your neighbour, for building up the common good.

Such a commitment requires perseverance; it demands effort and, at times, sacrifice. Yet it is the sign that we are truly the Church of Christ. In fact, the first reading we heard narrates in just a few verses how a Church that fearlessly and joyfully proclaims the Gospel is also a Church that, precisely for this reason, may be persecuted (cf. Acts 8:1–8). Nevertheless, the Acts of the Apostles tells us that, while Christians were forced to flee and were scattered, many drew near to the word of the Lord and could see with their own eyes how those who were sick in body and spirit were healed: these were the miraculous signs of God’s presence, which brought great joy to the whole city (cf. vv. 6–8).

Brothers and sisters, even when faced with personal, family and social situations that are not always favourable, we can trust that the Lord is at work, making the good seed of his Kingdom grow in ways unknown to us, including when everything around us seems barren, and even in moments of darkness. With such confidence, rooted in the power of his love rather than in our own merits, we are called to remain faithful to the Gospel, to proclaim it, to live it fully and to bear witness to it with joy. God will not fail to provide signs of his presence, and just as Jesus told us in the Gospel we heard, he once again will be for us “the bread of life” that satisfies our hunger (cf. Jn 6:35).

What is the hunger we feel? And what does this nation hunger for today? The motto chosen for my visit is “Christ, Light of Equatorial Guinea, Towards a Future of Hope.” Perhaps this is precisely the greatest hunger today. There is hunger for a future imbued with hope that is capable of engendering a new sense of justice and producing fruits of peace and fraternity. This is not an unknown future that we must passively await, but rather one that we ourselves are called to build with God’s grace. The future of Equatorial Guinea depends upon your choices; it is entrusted to your sense of responsibility and to your shared commitment to safeguarding the life and dignity of every person.

It is therefore necessary for all the baptized to feel that they are part of the work of evangelization, and so become apostles of charity and witnesses to a new humanity.

It is a matter of taking part, with the light and strength of the Gospel, in the integral development of this land, in its renewal and in its transformation. The Creator has endowed you with great natural wealth: I urge you to work together so that it may be a blessing for all. May the Lord help you to become a society in which everyone, each according to their respective responsibilities, works ever more fully to serve the common good rather than private interests, bridging the gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged. May there be greater room for freedom, and may the dignity of the human person always be safeguarded. My thoughts go to the poorest, to families experiencing difficulty and to prisoners who are often forced to live in troubling hygienic and sanitary conditions.

Brothers and sisters, there is a need for Christians to take the destiny of Equatorial Guinea into their own hands. For this reason, I would like to encourage you: do not be afraid to proclaim the Gospel and bear witness to it with your lives! Be builders of a future of hope, peace and reconciliation, carrying on the work begun by the missionaries 170 years ago.

May the Immaculate Virgin Mary be with you on this journey. May she intercede for you and help you to become generous and joyful disciples of Christ.

And we also wish to leave the chalice we used to celebrate the Eucharist at this altar as a gift to this community, to this church.  May we always be united in communion with Christ.

22.04.26

Pope Leo Holy Mass,  Saurimo  20.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Angola 

FAMINE

Pope Francis

Hunger

Hunger is an injustice that destroys men and women because they have nothing to eat, even if there is a lot food available in the world. Human exploitation; different forms of slavery; recently I saw a film shot inside a prison where migrants are locked up and tortured to turn them into slaves. This is still happening 70 years after the Declaration of Human Rights. Cultural colonization. This is exactly what the Devil wants, to destroy human dignity – and that is why the Devil is behind all forms of persecution.

01.06.18

Pope Leo Apostolic Journey to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea  

13–23 April 2026

Pope Leo Holy Mass,  Mongomo 22.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Equatorial Guinea

Pope Leo Holy Mass,  Kilamba 19.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Angola 

Dear brothers and sisters,

I celebrate the Eucharist here among you with a grateful heart. Thanks be to God for this gift, and thank you for your warm welcome!

On this third Sunday of Easter, the Lord has spoken to us through the Gospel about the disciples on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35).  Let us allow ourselves to be illuminated by this word of life.

Two of the Lord’s disciples, with broken and sad hearts, set out from Jerusalem to return to the village of Emmaus.  They had seen the death of Jesus, whom they had faithfully followed.  They were returning home disappointed and disheartened.  On the road, they were “talking with each other about all these things that had happened” (Lk 24:14).  They were compelled to speak of it, to recount once more what they had seen and to share what they had experienced.  In doing so, however, they risked becoming prisoners of their grief and closed off to hope.

Brothers and sisters, in this opening scene of the Gospel, I see a reflection of the history of Angola, of this beautiful yet wounded country, which hungers and thirsts for hope, peace and fraternity.  Indeed, the conversation along the road between the two disciples, who reflected with sorrow on what had happened to their Master, brings to mind the pain that has marked your country: a long civil war with its aftermath of enmities and divisions, of squandered resources and poverty.

When one is long immersed in a history so characterized by pain, one can risk losing hope and remaining paralyzed by discouragement, just like the two disciples.  Indeed, they were walking, yet they remained fixated on the events of three days earlier when they saw the death of Jesus.  They conversed with each other, but without hope of a solution. They continued to speak of what had happened, with the weariness of those who do not know how to start afresh or whether it is even possible to do so.

Dear friends, the Good News of the Lord, even for us today, is precisely this: he is alive, he has risen, and he walks beside us as we journey along the path of suffering and bitterness, opening our eyes so that we may recognize his work and granting us the grace to start afresh and rebuild the future.

The Lord walks alongside the two disappointed disciples, who are running out of hope.  As their travelling companion, he helps them to piece together the fragments of that story, to look beyond their pain, to discover that they are not alone on the journey and that a future, still inhabited by the God of love, awaits them.  When he stops to dine with them, sits at the table and breaks the bread, then “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31).

Here, too, is the path laid out for us, for you, dear Angolan brothers and sisters, to begin anew.  On the one hand, there is the certainty that the Lord accompanies us and has compassion on us, and on the other, the commitment that he asks from us.

We experience the Lord’s companionship above all in our relationship with him, in prayer, in listening to his word that sets our hearts ablaze like it did to the hearts of the two disciples.  This takes place especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.  It is here that we encounter God.  For this reason, we must always be vigilant regarding those forms of traditional religiosity that certainly belong to the roots of your culture, but at the same time risk confusing and mixing magical and superstitious elements that do not aid your spiritual journey.  Remain faithful to what the Church teaches, trust your pastors, and keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, who reveals himself in the word and in the Eucharist.  In both we experience that the risen Lord walks beside us and, united to him, we too overcome the “deaths” that besiege us and live as those who have “risen.”

This certainty that we are not alone on the journey includes a generous commitment on our part to sooth wounds and rekindle hope.  Indeed, if the two disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, this means that we too must recognize him in this way: not only in the Eucharist, but wherever there is a life that becomes like broken bread, wherever someone offers himself or herself as a gift of compassion like him.

The history of your country, the ongoing difficult consequences you endure, the social and economic problems and the various forms of poverty call for the presence of a Church that knows how to walk alongside you and how to heed the cry of its children.  A Church that, with the light of the word and the nourishment of the Eucharist, knows how to rekindle lost hope.  A Church made up of people like you who give of themselves just as Jesus gave of himself in the breaking of the bread for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Angola needs bishops, priests, missionaries, men and women religious, and lay people who carry in their hearts the desire to “break” their own lives and give them to others, to commit themselves to mutual love and forgiveness, to build spaces of fraternity and peace, and to perform acts of compassion and solidarity towards those most in need.

Through the grace of the risen Christ, we can become like this broken bread that transforms reality.  Just as the Eucharist reminds us that we are one body and one spirit, united to the one Lord, so it is possible to build together 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.  Only in this way will a promising future be possible, especially for the many young people who have lost hope.

19.04.26 m

Pope Leo Holy Mass, Yaoundé 18.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Cameroon

How do we receive the Word of God? The response is clear: As one receives Jesus Christ. The Church tells us that Jesus is present in the Scripture, in His Word.

Always carry a small Gospel with you in your purse, in your pocket, and read a passage from the Gospel during the day. Not so much to learn something, but mostly to find Jesus, because Jesus actually is in His Word, in His Gospel.  Every time I read the Gospel, I find Jesus.  - Pope Francis 01.09.14

Daily Readings - read the entire New Testament over a 2 year period (reading plan courtesy of Gideon International)

The Bible Online

Thank you, Francis

Every month, you have invited us to pray with you for the challenges of humanity and the mission of the Church, teaching us to learn compassion for others from the heart of Christ. Thank you, Francis, for your life and your witness.

Your Worldwide Prayer Network.

Pope Francis Easter Message and Urbi et Orbi Blessing   20.04.25

Easter Sunday

for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Pope Francis

Care for Our Common Home - Laudato Si'

Pope Francis 

Refugees and Migrants

Pope Francis

 Marriage

Pope Francis - The ‘foreverness’ and beauty of Love 

Pope Francis - The Family in the Light of the Word of God

Pope Francis 

Fraternity

Pope Francis

Compassion

Pope Francis

Happiness

Pope Leo Holy Mass,  Saurimo  20.04.26

Apostolic Journey to  Angola 

Pope Francis Message for the 58th World Day of Peace 01.01.25