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People wave small flags and celebrate before Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass at Malabo Stadium in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, April 23, 2026. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

With outcries against corruption throughout Africa, pope softens speech in Equatorial Guinea


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OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea (CNS) — In the final leg of his apostolic journey to Africa, Pope Leo XIV struck a more measured tone, delivering a message to the faithful while navigating one of the continent’s most politically sensitive environments.

Spending less than 48 hours in Equatorial Guinea — a country of roughly 1.8 million people and among the least visited in the world by tourists — the pope delivered five speeches and celebrated two Masses, emphasizing human dignity while avoiding the sharper political language that marked earlier stops on his trip.

The Central African nation, which includes a mainland territory and several islands, has remained relatively isolated due mostly to its strict visa requirements and limited tourism infrastructure. Public criticism of the government is rare, and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled since 1979, making the 83-year-old one of the world’s longest-serving leaders.

With a trip that began in Algeria, Cameroon and Angola, Pope Leo urged leaders, who have all faced criticism from human rights groups over political freedoms, to break free from the “chains of corruption.” In Equatorial Guinea, however, those same themes surfaced in more indirect ways.

Speaking at the presidential palace in Malabo to Obiang and the diplomatic corps April 21, the pope warned against “the will to dominate, arrogance or discrimination,” adding that God’s name “must never be invoked to justify choices and actions of death.” While he did not explicitly call out political leaders, his language was more nuanced, quoting Scripture, Catholic leaders, saints, and his predecessors.

He also encouraged the country to “position itself on the international stage in the service of law and justice,” but stopped short of the more direct critiques heard earlier in the trip.

That balance between moral clarity and diplomatic restraint continued throughout the visit.

At a Mass in Mongomo attended by more than 100,000 people April 22, the pope framed the country’s future as a shared responsibility, telling the faithful, “The future of Equatorial Guinea depends upon your choices; it is entrusted to your sense of responsibility and to your shared commitment to safeguarding the life and dignity of every person.”

The caution reflected the country’s broader context. Since the mid-1990s, Equatorial Guinea has become one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil producers, giving it one of the highest gross national incomes per capita on the continent. Yet that wealth remains deeply unevenly distributed. According to the World Bank, more than half the population lives on less than $8.30 a day, 24% of the population lacks electricity and 32.4% have no access to piped water. 

Human rights groups have long raised concerns about governance in Equatorial Guinea, which consistently ranks among the lowest globally for political freedoms, while prison conditions have been described as life-threatening. Transparency International ranked the country 173rd out of 180 countries in its 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Ahead of the papal trip, some media outlets reported that the cost of Pope Leo’s arrival was put upon the people. Agence France Presse reported that civil servants said their income was lower in February. The amount docked ranged from 20,000 to 55,000 CFA francs ($34-$95), depending on salaries, according to several testimonies. The government issued a statement in response last month, saying these reports were inaccurate and misleading. 

Those reports added to a broader backdrop of economic inequality and limited transparency in public life.

The pope returned repeatedly to themes of inequality and exclusion, warning against the concentration of wealth and urging that the country’s natural resources become “a blessing for all,” echoing broader concerns without directly naming those responsible.

The pope was more cautious in his tone, and the atmosphere surrounding the visit mirrored that restraint.

In Malabo and beyond, large buildings stood widely spaced and often sparsely populated, contributing to a sense of distance. Journalists traveling with the papal delegation noted that while encounters with locals were polite, many people were reluctant to engage beyond brief exchanges, and enthusiasm for media interaction appeared limited.

That dynamic contrasted with some of the pope’s previous stops in Africa, where crowds were more openly expressive and his own language more direct.

Yet in more personal settings, the pope’s tone shifted noticeably.

At a visit to the Jean-Pierre Olié Psychiatric Hospital, the pope appeared at ease, spending extended time listening to patients’ stories, shaking hands and posing for selfies with families and staff. The April 21 encounter stood out as one of the most visibly warm moments of the trip.

In one of the most emotional stops of his trip to Africa, Pope Leo visited Bata Prison, where human rights reports have documented serious allegations of abuse in detention facilities.

A U.S. State Department’s 2023 human rights report on the country said that “lawyers and other observers who visited prisons and jails reported serious abuses, including beatings, sleep deprivation, use of car batteries to shock and inflict pain, and withholding of food, liquids, and medical treatment.”

Amnesty International reported in 2021 that hundreds of prisoners have ended up in detention with no way of receiving visits from their lawyers and families. Pope Leo seemed to allude to that situation when he told the prisoners, “You are not alone. Your families love you and are waiting for you. Many people outside these walls are praying for you. If any of you fear being abandoned by everyone, know that God will never abandon you, and that the Church will stand by your side.”

During the visit, male and female prisoners with shaved heads gathered in the prison courtyard, standing in formation even as heavy rain began to fall. Officials moved under shelter while inmates remained in the rain. At one point, prisoners performed a coordinated dance for the visiting pope, who watched and smiled politely.

Even in this setting, Pope Leo’s remarks focused on reconciliation rather than confrontation. Speaking during the visit on April 22, he said, “True justice seeks not so much to punish as to help rebuild the lives of victims, offenders and communities wounded by evil.”

At the final Mass in Africa, the pope turned to the day’s first reading, which carried unmistakable resonance.

Reflecting on the passage regarding Philip and the conversion of the wealthy Ethiopian official in the Acts of the Apostles, he described a man whose wealth is “not his own,” whose life is “placed at the service of a power that controls and rules over him,” and who returns to “a place of servitude.” When he returns to his homeland of Africa, the pope said, eventually, “the proclamation of the Gospel sets him free.”

“He steps into salvation history, which embraces every man and woman, especially the oppressed, the marginalized and the least among us,” he told an estimated 30,000 people in his homily at the Malabo Stadium April 23. 

The passage echoed the broader themes of dignity and liberation that ran throughout the visit.

Drawing on the biblical account of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Pope Leo told students and staff at the newly-named Leo XIV University Campus April 21 that the problem was not the pursuit of knowledge itself, but its “deviation towards an intelligence that no longer seeks to correspond to reality, but rather to twist it for its own purposes, evaluating it according to the benefit of the one who demands to know.”

“Here knowledge ceases to be an opening and becomes instead a possession; it ceases to be the path towards wisdom and is transformed into a prideful affirmation of self-sufficiency, opening the road to confusion, which can eventually become inhumane,” he said.

Still, the visit was not without moments of public enthusiasm.

At Bata Stadium, heavy rain fell as tens of thousands of young people and families gathered to see him. The downpour continued through most of the event, but the crowd remained.

“Who is afraid of the rain?” Pope Leo asked, drawing cheers from more than 50,000 attendees.

He urged them to build a society rooted in love, responsibility and care for the most vulnerable, saying such values could “transform the world — even its structures and institutions — so that every person is respected, and no one is forgotten.”

The visit also carried historical resonance. St. John Paul II traveled to the country in 1982, just three years after Obiang took power following the “reign of terror” as most historians and human rights groups called his uncle’s brutal regime, a period marked by widespread repression, military executions and murders, and mass exile.

St. John Paul had described the role of the president as “the symbolic center to which the living aspirations of a people converge” for justice, liberty and respect for human dignity. These words, Pope Leo told the diplomatic corps, “remain timely and that challenge anyone entrusted with public responsibility.”

In his final comments in the country before embarking on a six-hour flight back to Rome, he quoted Pope Francis in warning of the dangers of a “complacent yet covetous heart.” 

“Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor,” he said in his homily at Malabo Stadium. 

“In the face of such closed attitudes, it is precisely the Lord’s love that sustains our efforts,  especially in the service of justice and solidarity,” he said, encouraging the people to persevere as a people, united and active in a faith “that saves, so that God’s word may become good leaven for all.”

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