LUANDA, Angola: Tens of hundreds gathered exterior Angola’s capital, Luanda, for a large open-air Sunday (Apr 19) mass led by Pope Leo XIV on the second day of his visit to the resource-rich nation marked by deep poverty.
Pope Leo flew to Portuguese-speaking Angola on Saturday to begin the third leg of a four-nation African tour.
He went instantly into a gathering with President Joao Lourenco and different officers, the place he spoke out in opposition to oppression and the “struggling” brought on by poverty and the rampant exploitation of pure assets.
The remarks continued a theme of his 11-day tour throughout which he has delivered pointed warnings in opposition to corruption and the plunder of the continent’s pure wealth.
Multitudes – many looking for a message of hope in troublesome circumstances – turned out to hitch Pope Leo for the Sunday mass at Kilamba on the outskirts of the capital.
Patricio Musanga, 32, mentioned he was in search of encouragement for younger folks in Angola, the place a scarcity of labor made many search higher alternatives in Western international locations.
“He wants to provide us hope, to assist us perceive that from right here we are able to stay higher than overseas,” he advised journalists.
“We’re very wealthy in pure assets however … there’s a obvious inequality between those that stay nicely and the others,” mentioned Musanga, carrying a cap and a T-shirt exhibiting the Pope’s picture.
Despite the fact that Angola is one among Africa’s high producers of crude oil and can be wealthy in assets like diamonds, round a 3rd of its inhabitants of 36.6 million folks stay in poverty, based on the World Financial institution.
“There is a focus of wealth within the arms of only a few, and naturally, the struggle simply aggravated the scenario,” mentioned Father Pedro Chingandu, who had come from the japanese province of Moxico to attend the mass.
Angola remains to be scarred by a civil struggle that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975 and led to 2002.
“We’d like actual democracy and the redistribution of wealth and justice,” Chingandu advised AFP.
