Hostage stand-off and disputed comments: Past papal visits to Africa

VATICAN CITY – Pope Leo XIV leaves on April 13 for a visit to four countries in Africa, in an ambitious tour to urge world leaders to address the needs of the continent. Here is a history of papal visits to Africa, where more than 20 per cent of the world’s Catholics live.

Pope Paul VI (1963 to 1978)

Pope Paul VI, the first pope to leave Italy in 150 years, made the first papal visit to Africa in 1969. He visited Uganda, seven years after the country’s independence from Britain.

Over the three-day visit, he made 19 speeches and ordained 12 new Catholic bishops. In a speech to the Ugandan Parliament, he asked them to pursue a peace agenda.

“No longer should violence be the means of resolving disagreements among men, but reason and love,” said Pope Paul VI.

Pope John Paul II (1978 to 2005)

Pope John Paul II made 15 visits to Africa and travelled to 41 countries on the continent.

A nine-day trip to five countries in southern Africa in 1988 was marred by a hostage stand-off in Lesotho, when gunmen hijacked a bus full of pilgrims and demanded a meeting to discuss political issues in the country.

A rescue operation killed three gunmen and two hostages.

On that trip, Pope John Paul also condemned South Africa’s apartheid system.

He was the last pope to visit Equatorial Guinea, in 1982.

Pope Benedict XVI (2005 to 2013)

Pope Benedict made two visits to Africa. He was the last pope to visit Cameroon and Angola, in 2009.

While that visit was welcomed by enthusiastic crowds, it was overshadowed in global coverage by a comment the pope made on his flight to Cameroon.

Asked whether the Church could relax its ban on Catholics using condoms to help fight the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Pope Benedict said allowing condoms would only “increase the problem”.

With some 22.5 million Africans living with HIV at the time, the comments sparked international outcry.

Pope Francis (2013 to 2025)

Pope Francis made five visits to Africa. A 2015 visit to the Central African Republic (CAR), then in the midst of a two-year sectarian conflict, was the first time a pope had travelled to an active war zone.

Vatican officials were advising the pope not to make the trip.

Travelling on to the country from Uganda, Pope Francis warned the plane’s pilot: “I want to go to CAR, if you can’t manage it, give me a parachute!”

Pope Francis made a 2023 visit to South Sudan in coordination with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first time that the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion made a joint foreign visit. REUTERS