Pope Leo Concludes his 11-Day Visit to Africa and Leaves Equatorial Guinea

In front of tens of thousands of supporters, Pope Leo XIV celebrated an outdoor mass in Equatorial Guinea on Thursday, concluding his first significant international journey that started with US President Donald Trump’s harsh condemnation of his position on Iran.

Since Tuesday, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has been in the closed-off nation in central Africa, where he criticized the repression of civic liberties and demanded better treatment for inmates in a nation known for its cruel prisons.

He conducted a mass in front of 30,000 people in a stadium in Malabo, the former capital, on his last day in the oil-rich former Spanish colony of two million people, where the majority of the populace lives in poverty.

He was scheduled to return to Rome at approximately 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT). He will address reporters who are accompanying him on the journey; his comments are much anticipated following Trump’s criticism.

In remarks that clouded the beginning of his four-country, 11-day Africa visit, Trump labeled the US-born pope “very weak on crime and other things” and claimed he was “wrong” to call for an end to killing in the Iran war. Later, the pope said he regretted if his remarks were seen as a reaction to the US leader’s criticism and insisted he was not interested in a debate with him.

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