Pope Leo ends Africa visit with open air mass in Equatorial Guinea

Pope Leo XIV (C) leads a Holy Mass at the Malabo Stadium in Malabo on the last day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa, on April 23, 2026. [AFP]

Pope Leo XIV will hold an open air mass in Equatorial Guinea on Thursday to end a landmark 11-day trip across Africa that has been the US pontiff's first big international trip.

The tour mixing political and pastoral messages, took Leo to four countries, traveling 18,000 kilometres (11,000 miles) and involved eight masses.

Whilst embroiled in a diplomatic battle with US President Donald Trump, Leo has repeatedly called for social justice, peace and respect for human dignity, while denouncing inequality, corruption and the unjust exploitation of natural resources by "tyrants".

On Wednesday, the pope went to Equatorial Guinea's notorious Bata prison where he was greeted by hundreds of shaven-headed inmates and made comments criticising living conditions.

On Thursday, the head of the Catholic Church will celebrate a mass at 10:00 am (0900 GMT) at a stadium in Malabo, the former capital of the former Spanish colony of two million inhabitants.

He will then depart for Rome and will hold a traditional press conference on the plane for the journalists accompanying him, which will be closely watched given Trump's harsh criticism against him.

Leo has denied that some of his pointed comments in Africa about war, human dignity, and economic injustice were aimed at Trump, saying they had been written before Trump called him "weak" and "incompetent in foreign policy" -- remarks that overshadowed the beginning of his trip.

- Strong stands -

The pope arrived in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday after stops in Algeria, Cameroon and Angola.

Leaders of those countries have all been criticised -- in varying degrees -- for authoritarian tendencies.

Leo throughout the trip has taken strong stands, as when he denounced those who "in the name of profit, continue to lay their hands on the African continent to exploit and plunder it."

On Wednesday, in front of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1979, he again called for "spaces of freedom to increase" and denounced the "worrying hygiene and health conditions" of the country's prisoners.

Robert Francis Prevost, 70, is relatively young for a pope and has shown energy that contrasts sharply with the declining health of his Argentinian predecessor, Francis, who died a year ago at 88.

His next trip abroad will be to Spain from June 6 to 12.