Pope Leo XIV’s plane took off from Luanda Airport on April 21, 2026, at 9.19 am local time (10.19 am Rome time), at the end of his visit to Angola. Equatorial Guinea will be the final stop on his 11-day tour of Africa.
After a three-day stay in Angola, which took him to Luanda, the Marian shrine at Muxima, and Saurimo, where he was given a festive welcome even in the streets, the Pontiff was greeted on the tarmac by the president of the southern African country, João Lourenço.
Monday evening, on the eve of his departure, he briefly received the Angolan Vice-President, Esperança Maria Eduardo Francisco da Costa, at the nunciature late in the day.
In Equatorial Guinea, following the 2½-hour flight, the Head of the Catholic Church is welcomed by the country’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. In power since 1979, the 83-year-old politician also welcomed Pope John Paul II during the Polish Pontiff's visit in 1982.
This nation is the only one in Africa that has Spanish as its official language, so after Portuguese and French, the Holy Father now returns to a language more comfortable for him.
Pope Leo will head back to Rome on Thursday.
