On his return flight to Rome after a deeply symbolic and pastorally courageous journey to Turkey and Lebanon, Pope Leo quietly but decisively announced that his next apostolic visit would be to Africa. The remark, offered in response to a journalist’s question, was simple in form yet profound in its implications. Explaining his choice, Pope Leo invoked Saint Augustine of Hippo—Africa’s great doctor of the Church, the son of North Africa whose expansive theological imagination still illuminates Christian faith and human civilization. By following in Augustine’s footsteps, Pope Leo hopes to deepen the dialogue between Christianity and Islam, which lies at the very heart of his papal mission: a mission to build bridges among peoples, cultures, civilizations, religions, races, and nations.
Where a Pope travels early in his pontificate is always a sign of his priorities. For Pope Francis, that first prophetic gesture was to Lampedusa, where he stood among migrants and refugees at the far edges of Europe, confronting the world with the moral scandal of indifference. Pope Leo’s own early choices—beginning with Turkey and Lebanon—mark a different but deeply complementary orientation. They reveal a pontificate rooted in the healing of memories, the reconciliation of divided peoples, and the restoration of what is broken in our common life. At a moment when humanity is besieged by violence, ancient grievances, and new forms of exclusion, Pope Leo’s journeys signal his intention to plant the seeds of peace precisely in the world’s most wounded spaces.
Three aspects of Pope Leo’s first journey abroad deserve special attention. First, his choice of Turkey and Lebanon was not accidental. In a world torn apart by war, forced migration, and religious polarization, these lands stand as living icons of both humanity’s greatness and its tragedy. By choosing to begin there, Pope Leo gestured toward the heart of global suffering and division. His presence constituted an invitation to the world to listen again to the better angels of our nature and to imagine a new global order founded not on recrimination and fear, but on friendship, dialogue, and mutual responsibility. The world today aches for a moral and spiritual leader who can offer a vision of healing and courageously embody it. In Pope Leo’s grounding in Augustine’s thought, one sees precisely such a leader—someone capable of the deep work of repairing the social fabric, mending broken relationships, and restoring trust in public life.
Second, the Holy Father’s gestures during this visit communicated a powerful message without a single unnecessary word. In Nicea, his prayer and profession of the Creed alongside the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew—1700 years after that same Creed first took shape—signaled a renewed commitment to Christian unity and the hope for a common celebration of Easter. In the Blue Mosque, his moment of contemplative reverence expressed the Church’s deep respect for Islam and its conviction that Muslims and Christians are fellow seekers before the mystery of God. And by refraining from visiting the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, he sent a subtle but unmistakable message against the politicization of religion and the instrumentalization of sacred space. His actions were delicate yet bold, diplomatic yet uncompromising in their moral clarity.
Third, his visit to Lebanon reinforced his pastoral style as one marked by accompaniment and solidarity. Lebanon—once described as the “Switzerland of the East”—is now a microcosm of the world’s deepest wounds: sectarian paralysis, corruption, economic collapse, the erosion of democratic institutions, and the suffocating weight of geopolitical manipulation. Pope Leo walked among a people exhausted by conflict and yet yearning for hope—including Christians fighting for their survival, Muslims seeking peace, youth struggling to hold on to the promise of a future. His presence was a homily in motion. It reminded the world that the Church, at her best, does not abandon the wounded but draws near to them with tenderness, truth, and unflinching moral resolve.
Pope Leo’s approach stands in continuity with, yet also distinct from, that of Pope Francis. Francis gave the Church the landmark Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity in 2019 and offered an extraordinary personal witness, such as his 2015 visit to the Central African Republic despite grave security risks, where he rode in the Popemobile with the Imam and the Archbishop of Bangui. Pope Leo shares this willingness to enter dangerous places to bear witness to the dignity of the poor and the possibilities of peace. But Leo’s theological grounding is uniquely Augustinian. His motto—“In Christ who is one, we are all one”—echoes Augustine’s vision of totus Christus, the whole Christ, in whom humanity is gathered, reconciled, and given its truest identity. Augustine reminds us that there are people who belong to Christ but do not yet visibly belong to the Church, and there are those who belong to the Church but have not allowed Christ to belong to them fully. Pope Leo’s bridge-building is therefore not merely a diplomatic strategy; it is a Christological and ecclesiological conviction that humanity is mysteriously bound together in Christ, who is our peace.
This Augustinian clarity also marks a difference in communication style between the two pontiffs. While Pope Francis’s beautiful spontaneity often leaves interpreters and commentators wrestling with the full implications of his words, Pope Leo speaks with a contemplative precision that seldom requires clarification. His thought is luminous, his intentions transparent, and his theological foundations unmistakably clear. In a polarized world where ambiguity is easily weaponized, this clarity may prove to be an immense pastoral gift.
It is within this larger horizon that Pope Leo’s forthcoming visit to Africa must be understood. When he arrives on African soil, he will encounter a continent rich in faith, culture, and spiritual wisdom, yet ravaged by political mismanagement, economic injustice, and the exploitation of religious identity for partisan or extremist purposes. Contrary to global caricatures, African Christians and Muslims do not hate one another. Ordinary people across the continent desire peace, coexistence, and mutual respect. What undermines this aspiration is the toxic alliance of bad politics and bad religion—elite-driven manipulation of ethnic, regional, and religious identities in the struggle for power and resources.
International data confirm this crisis. The World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse reports of 2024 and 2025 underscore the erosion of human security due to weak institutions, corruption, authoritarian backsliding, climate shocks, and economic instability. UNICEF reports that more than 390 million African children live in multidimensional poverty, one of the highest burdens on the planet. Afrobarometer’s 2024 surveys show collapsing trust in political institutions across 34 African countries, with citizens expressing profound disillusionment with electoral processes, governance structures, and national leadership. These pressures often erupt in religiously framed conflicts—not because religion demands violence, but because political actors strategically deploy religious identity to mobilize, divide, or dominate.
This is why the same story repeats from Nigeria to Sudan, Ethiopia to the DRC, and Mozambique to Cameroon. The crises are not theological; they are political. They are symptoms of what scholars have long named the “African predicament”—the enduring structural constraints embedded in the colonial formation of the African nation-state, the exploitative logics of neoliberal capitalism, elite capture of the state, and the failure to build inclusive institutions capable of upholding the common good. As the state shrinks into the private estate of a few families, parties, and factions, whole populations retreat into ethnic and religious fortresses. Militia groups emerge where governance collapses; rebel movements flourish in vacuums of legitimacy; young people flee in desperation; and the poor bear the unbearable weight of it all.
Pope Leo’s forthcoming visit offers a moment of profound moral possibility. It invites Africa to hear anew the ancient Augustinian call to unity, justice, and the healing of memories. His message will remind us that Africa must reclaim its agency, that faith must never be weaponized, and that the dignity of the poor and peace-making must be the starting point of all spiritual and national renewal. The Church in Africa possesses immense spiritual and cultural resources—Ubuntu, palaver traditions, ancestral wisdom, community-centered cosmologies of relationality and solidarity. These resources are not relics; they are tools for imagining a humane political order.
As we prepare to welcome Pope Leo, we Africans must begin the work of conversion ourselves. The renewal of our continent cannot be achieved by papal visits alone; it requires churches committed to peacemaking, religious leaders who refuse manipulation, politicians who fear God and honor the truth, and youth movements that reclaim the continent’s future with courage and imagination such as the building-bridges initiative of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network with youth from the entire continent of Africa. Pope Leo will bring to Africa not simply the message of the Vatican, but the healing Christ of Augustine’s totus Christus, who binds all people together in one body.
Let us prepare the way for his coming—not with fanfare, but with renewed resolve to heal our land, reconcile our peoples, and build together the Africa that future generations deserve.
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