Pope Leo XIV challenged Angola\u2019s leaders to break the “extractivism\u201d that has plundered and exploited Africa for centuries as he arrived in the southern African country on Saturday with a message of encouragement for its long-suffering people.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic of extractivism,\u201d\u00a0the pontiff said.<\/p>\n
Leo’s arrival in Angola, the oil-and-mineral-rich former Portuguese colony, marked the third leg of his four-nation African voyage.<\/p>\n
En route\u00a0from Cameroon, he spoke again of\u00a0the ongoing back-and-forth with United States President Donald Trump\u00a0over the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Leo, history\u2019s first US-born pope, said that it was \u201cnot in my interest at all\u201d to debate Trump but that he would continue preaching the Gospel message of peace, justice and brotherhood in Africa.<\/p>\n
In Angola, Leo met with President Jo\u00e3o Louren\u00e7o and delivered his first speech to Angolan government authorities, in which he referred repeatedly to Angola\u2019s tortured history of colonial plunder and civil war.<\/p>\n
\u201cI desire to meet you\u00a0in the spirit born of peace\u00a0and to affirm that your people possess treasures that cannot be bought or stolen,\u201d\u00a0he said.\u00a0“There dwells within you a joy that not even the most adverse circumstances have been able to extinguish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angola, which has a population of around 38 million,\u00a0gained independence from Portugal in 1975.<\/p>\n
It still bears the scars of a devastating civil war that began straight after independence and raged on and off for 27 years before finally ending in 2002. More than a half-million people are believed to have been killed.<\/p>\n
For years, the civil war was a Cold War proxy conflict, with the United States and apartheid South Africa backing one side and the Soviet Union and Cuba backing the other.<\/p>\n
Angola is now the fourth-largest oil producer in Africa and among the world\u2019s top 20 producers, according to the International Energy Agency.<\/p>\n
The country is also the world\u2019s No. 3 diamond producer and has significant deposits of gold and highly sought after critical minerals.<\/p>\n
But despite its varied natural resources, the World Bank estimated in 2023 that more than 30% of the population lived on less than $2.15 a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know well that all too often people have looked \u2014 and continue to look \u2014 to your lands in order to give, or, more commonly, in order to take,\u201d\u00a0Leo told the Angolan authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Leo XIV challenged Angola\u2019s leaders to break the “extractivism\u201d that has plundered and exploited Africa for centuries as he arrived in the southern African country on Saturday with a message of encouragement for its long-suffering people. \u201cHow much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[275,5039],"class_list":["post-20540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-angola","tag-pope-leo-xiv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20542,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20540\/revisions\/20542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}