Pope’s upcoming Africa odyssey will take him to a mosque, a prison and the site of a deadly 2021 explosion

Rome — The Vatican released details of Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming four-nation tour of Africa on Monday, citing Christian-Muslim relations, comforting victims of violence and encouraging Catholic communities in former European colonies as key themes.

The April 13-23 trip begins in Algeria, which has never welcomed a pope before. This includes a visit to the Great Mosque in Algiers as well as a meeting with Leo’s fellow Augustinians at the site associated with St. Augustine of Hippo, the 5th-century inspiration for his religious order.

Leo will chair a peace meeting in northwest Cameroon, visit Angola’s main Marian shrine and pray at a memorial for victims of a 2021 blast in Equatorial Guinea that killed more than 100 people and was accused of neglect.

All the while, he meets with local bishops, celebrates Masses for the faithful and holds private talks with the leaders of four nations, two of whom have been in power for decades.

Here’s a look at some of the major stations in each country.

Leo has a busy first day in Algiers, meeting with government officials, touring a mosque and meeting with the local Catholic community.

He then heads east on the Algerian coast to visit Annaba, formerly known as Hippo, where St. Augustine lived and died in 430, one of the theological and devotional giants of early Christianity. Leo meets a community of Augustinian sisters and priests and tours an archaeological site.

The Pope celebrates Mass in the capital’s basilica named after St. Augustine.

Leo’s next stop will be in Cameroon, where Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2009. He will visit the capital Yaoundé, the country’s economic hub, Doula and Bamenda, the main city in the North West region.

Cameroon’s western regions have been fighting since English-speaking separatists launched a coup in 2017 with the goal of breaking away from the French-speaking majority and establishing an independent English-speaking state. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced more than 600,000, according to the International Crisis Group, a think tank.

One of the highlights of Leo’s visit is a “peace meeting” to be led by the Pope in Bamenda on April 16. Details of who might participate were not immediately announced.

The country has been plagued by fighting involving Boko Haram militants in the north as an insurgency by the Islamic extremist group in neighboring Nigeria has spread to Cameroon.

The Pope’s visit has raised concerns among some Cameroonians that it could be co-opted by the country’s leaders after a disputed presidential election.

Cameroonian Jesuit priest and opposition activist Ludovic Lado expressed his concern in an open letter to Leo, warning that the visit “could be interpreted as an implicit form of endorsement of a discredited and illegitimate government”.

The country’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya, already in power for 42 years, was declared the winner of October’s presidential election, securing another seven-year term. But his main challenger, former government spokesman Isa Tchiroma Bakari, continues to be the legitimate winner.

The Pope’s trip to Angola takes him to South Africa, a former Portuguese colony with an overwhelming Christian presence. Catholicism is the largest faith group in the Portuguese-speaking nation of about 38 million people, due to the influence of the former colonial ruler.

Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, though it immediately descended into a long and bloody civil war that did not end until 2002.

The Pope will visit the capital Luanda, the town of Muxima and the city of Sourimo.

In Muxima the Pope will visit the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima, a Marian shrine inside the Church of Our Lady of Muxima, one of Angola’s most important Catholic pilgrimage sites.

The church was first built by the Portuguese in the late 16th century after establishing a fort at Muxima. It became an important point in the Portuguese trans-Atlantic human trade as a place where slaves were baptized before being sent on ships to the Americas.

Leo’s final stop was in Equatorial Guinea, which has one of the largest Catholic populations in Africa, with about 70% of its 1.9 million citizens Catholic. A vestige of its Spanish colonialism, the Catholic Church remains a powerful and influential institution in the Central African country.

Although officially a secular state, the Catholic Mass forms part of state ceremonies, including Independence Day celebrations.

Leo’s visit to the country follows Pope St. John Paul II’s 1982 trip, which will see him travel through three of the country’s five dioceses in Malabo, the state capital, Bata and Mongomo.

In Bata, Leo will meet prison inmates and pray at a memorial for the victims of the 2021 blast at a military barracks that killed more than 100 people. The explosions occurred due to careless handling of dynamite in barracks near residential areas.

Equatorial Guinea has long been ruled by Africa’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguma Mbasogo, who has been in power since 1982 and is accused of running an autocratic regime.

Catholics in Equatorial Guinea suffered intense persecution under the rule of former President Francisco Macias Nguma, who closed churches in 1975 and officially banned the Catholic Church in 1978. Nguma wanted to get rid of colonial influences. This order was revoked when Teodoro came to power in a coup.

Although the country’s economy is powered by oil and gas wealth, at least 57% of its entire population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.

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Associated Press reporters Ope Adetayo in Lagos, Nigeria, Mark Banchero in Dakar, Senegal and Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa contributed to this report.

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