Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Luanda International Airport in Angola on Saturday, the sixth day of his tour of Africa.JULIO PACHECO NTELA/AFP/Getty Images
Pope Leo sought to downplay his feud with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, saying reporting about comments he has made so far during his Africa tour “has not been accurate in all its aspects.”
Speaking to reporters in English aboard his flight to Angola for the third leg of his ambitious 10-day Africa tour, the first U.S. pope said comments he made two days earlier in Cameroon decrying that the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not aimed at Trump.
That speech, said Leo, “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting.”
On Sunday, as Leo prepared to embark on his tour, Trump called him “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” in a post on Truth Social. Trump also posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus-like figure, drawing widespread criticism even from some religious conservatives who typically support him. The post was removed on Monday morning.
Trump appeared to be responding to Leo’s growing criticism in recent weeks of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
Pope Leo told Reuters on Monday that he would keep speaking out about the war, and Trump reiterated his criticism on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” though he did not mention Trump directly again.
“As it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all,” the pontiff said on Saturday.
Pope Leo sought to downplay his feud with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, saying reporting about comments he has made so far during his Africa tour "has not been accurate in all its aspects."
Reuters
Leo, originally from Chicago, kept a relatively low profile for a pope in his first 10 months but has debuted a new forceful speaking style in Africa, sharply denouncing war, inequality and global leaders.
His Africa tour is one of the most complicated ever arranged for a pontiff, with stops in 11 cities and towns in four countries, traversing nearly 18,000 km over 18 flights.
Pope denounces resource exploitation
On the ground in Luanda, the Angolan capital, later on Saturday, Leo sharply decried the exploitation of natural resources in Africa, blasting “despots and tyrants” who guarantee wealth but do not deliver on their promises, leading to suffering and deaths.
In a speech in oil-rich Angola, Leo called on Angolans to work for a society free from the “slavery imposed by the elite who are laden with much wealth but false joys.”
He lamented that “powerful interests lay their claim” on the former Portuguese colony’s natural resources, an apparent reference to foreign companies benefiting from Angola’s oil and diamond sectors and its nascent critical minerals sector.
“All too often people have looked – and continue to look – to your lands ... in order to take,” the pope said in remarks delivered to Angolan President João Lourenço and other political leaders.
“How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic of extractivism!” the pope said.
Despite being one of the leading oil-producing nations in sub-Saharan Africa, Angola’s population of 36.6 million people is still confronting extreme poverty, with more than 30 per cent living on less than $2.15 per day, according to the World Bank.
More than half of the country identifies as Catholic.
Leo called on Angolans “to break this cycle of interests, which reduces reality, and even life itself, to mere commodities.”
He urged the country’s political leaders to focus on helping all their people, and not just corporate interests.
“History will then vindicate you, even if in the near term some may oppose you,” he said.