Pope Celebrates Mass with 100,000 Faithful in Angola

Pope Leo XIV called Sunday for Angolans to fight the “scourge of corruption” with a culture of justice as he opened a poignant day in his African odyssey that took the American pope to an epicenter of the African slave trade.

Leo celebrated Mass before an estimated 100,000 people outside the capital and again sought to encourage Angolans. He denounced the exploitation of their mineral-rich land and people, who still bear the scars of a brutal, post-independence civil war.

He also praised the ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah as a “sign of hope” that he prayed would bring peace permanently to the Middle East.