Pope arrives in oil-rich Angola condemning ‘logic of extractivism’

LUANDA – Beginning a whirlwind visit to Angola on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV said Africa must overcome the conflicts and political instability that cripple the continent and keep it from a proper and complete development through a path of joy, dialogue and encounter.

The pontiff was speaking to Angolan political authorities, civil society leaders, and diplomats at the opening of the Angolan leg of his ten-day, fou-nation visit to Africa.

In his address, Leo also gave assurances of his prayers for victims of recent heavy rains and deadly flooding in the Angolan city of Benguela, praising Angolan society for their solidarity with those affected.

The pope said the country uniquely possesses “a joy that not even the most adverse circumstances have been able to extinguish.”

“This joy – which is no stranger to sorrow, indignation, disappointment and defeat – endures and is continually reborn among those who have kept their hearts and minds free from the seductions of wealth,” he said, referring to high corruption rates in the nation.

The pontiff also spoke of the trials Angola faces from foreign powers and extractive industries, saying Angolans are well aware that “all too often people have looked – and continue to look – to your lands in order to give, or, more commonly, in order to take.”

“It is necessary to break this cycle of interests, which reduces reality, and even life itself, to mere commodities,” he said.

Leo said he came to Angola primarily to listen and encourage those who have chosen “paths of goodness, justice, peace, tolerance and reconciliation,” but that he also came to pray “for the conversion of those who choose contrary paths and hinder its harmonious and fraternal development.”

Pope Leo XIV has already visited Algeria and Cameroon, and will also visit Equatorial Guinea before he returns to Rome April 23.

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Angola is an oil-rich nation boasting immense natural resources and varied terrain, from tropical beaches, a labyrinth of rivers, and the Namib desert along the country’s Atlantic coast. Despite its natural wealth, vast swaths of the population of just over 40 million live in extreme poverty.

Corruption and exploitation are blamed as the main contributing factors and will likely be key talking points for Pope Leo during his two-and-a-half-day visit.

The largest Portuguese-speaking country after Brazil, Angola is still predominantly Portuguese-speaking. Pope Leo will deliver the majority of his speeches in Portuguese, marking the first time he has spoken the language publicly as pontiff.

Angola is an overwhelmingly Christian nation, with over 90 percent of the population of 40 million identifying as Christian. Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination, with some 40-55 percent of the population identifying as Catholic and just under 30 percent as Protestant.

Speaking to national authorities in Portuguese – the first official speech he has delivered in the language since his election – Pope Leo called Africa a “reservoir of joy and hope” for the entire world.

He called these “political” virtues, because Africa’s youth and its poor “poor continue to dream and to hope.”

“They are not content with what already exists; they strive to rise above, to prepare themselves for great responsibilities, and to take an active part in shaping their own future,” he said.

This energy is something that “cannot be stifled by any ideology,” he said, saying humanity’s draw toward God “is a principle of social transformation far deeper than any political or cultural program.”

Referring to the vast material resources and the “powerful interests” that seek to lay a claim to them in Africa, and in Angola itself, he lamented the suffering, death, and social and environmental crisis caused by this “logic of extractivism.”

“At every level, we see how it sustains a model of development that discriminates and excludes, while still presuming to impose itself as the only viable option,” he said.

The pope quoted Pope Saint Paul VI, who condemned what he said was the “senile and definitely out-of-date aspect of a commercial, hedonistic and materialistic civilization which is still trying to present itself as the gateway to the future,” saying, “this generation is waiting for something else.”

Angolans, Pope Leo said, are witnesses that creation “is harmony in the richness of diversity.”

“Your people have suffered time and again when this harmony was violated by the arrogance of a few,” he said, saying the victims of violence “bear the scars not only of material exploitation, but also of the presumption of imposing an idea upon others.”

Africa, the pope said, “urgently needs to overcome situations and dynamics of conflict and enmity that tear apart the social and political fabric of many countries, fostering poverty and exclusion.”

“Only in encounter does life flourish,” he said, saying dialogue is the first step to resolving the disagreement that risks turning into conflict and stunting progress.

In this regard, Leo quoted his predecessor Francis in speaking about conflict, saying some prefer to pretend nothing is happening, while others engage in conflict themselves, whereas the better way is to accept conflict and resolve it through new and creative processes.

“Angola can experience great growth if, first of all, those who hold authority in the country believe in the manifold nature of its riches,” he said, telling national not to fear conflict, but to “know how to manage conflicts by transforming them into paths of renewal.”

He urged them to place the common good “before every particular interest” and to never confuse their own personal role with “the whole,” saying, “History will then vindicate you, even if in the near term some may oppose you.”

Leo then reflected on the aspects of joy and hope in Angolan society, especially given the high number of youth, saying these sentiments are “a profound and empowering force – one that resists every form of resignation and every temptation to close in on oneself.”

“Despots and tyrants of both body and spirit seek to render souls passive and passions gloomy; they prefer a populace prone to inertia, docile and subservient to power,” he said.

Sadly, the pope said, many look at the challenges that exist and find refuge in fanaticism, in submission, in the deafening noise of the media, in the glimmer of gold, in the identitarian myth.”

They thus fall into discontent, powerlessness, and the abandonment of fraternity, he said, quoting Francis’s 2020 social encyclical Fratelli Tutti, noting that in many countries, “hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools.”

“True joy frees us from such alienation [and] intensifies life and leads to the creation of community,” he said, saying joy is capable of carving out paths forward “even in the darkest zones of stagnation and hardship.”

“Let us therefore examine our own hearts, dear friends, because without joy there is no renewal; without interiority there is no liberation; without encounter there is no politics; without the other there is no justice,” the pope said.

Pope Leo said citizens together can make Angola a “project of hope” and invoked the church’s many contributions to social life and to peacemaking.

The Church, he said, seeks to foster “the growth of a just model of coexistence, free from the various forms of slavery imposed by the elite who are laden with much wealth but false joys.”

“Only together can we multiply the talents of this wonderful people, even in the urban peripheries and the remotest rural areas, where life is vibrant and the future of the people is being prepared,” he said.

Leo closed his address urging Angolans to “remove the obstacles to integral human development, working and hoping together alongside those whom the world has discarded but whom God has chosen.”

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