Malabo — “As within the early centuries of the Church, Africa immediately known as to make a decisive contribution to the holiness and the missionary character of the Christian individuals.” These ultimate phrases of Pope Leo XIV, addressed to the group gathered in Malabo stadium and, ideally, to the complete continent, on the finish of his first lengthy journey as Bishop of Rome to Africa, evoke the previous of apostolic instances as a way to look to the long run. He has simply concluded Mass, the ultimate act of his go to to Equatorial Guinea. Earlier than returning to Rome, Pope Prevost confessed that he’s leaving Africa “with an immeasurable treasure of religion, hope and charity: an important treasure consisting of tales, faces and testimonies, each joyful and sorrowful, which is able to significantly enrich my life and ministry because the Successor of Peter.” And he entrusts to the intercession of the Virgin Mary “you all, your households, your communities, your nation and all of the individuals of Africa.”
In the beginning of his homily, Pope Leo recalled the painful reality of the sudden dying of Fortunato Nsue Esono, Vicar Common of the diocese of Malabo, who had made a big contribution to the preparations for the papal go to and was discovered lifeless on April 17 at his residence within the parish of Our Girl of Bisila. The reason for his dying has not but been made public. “I invite you to reside this second of disappointment with a spirit of religion,” the Pope mentioned, “and I belief that, with out being swayed by hypothesis or rash conclusions, the circumstances surrounding his dying will likely be absolutely clarified.”
In his final homily delivered in Equatorial Guinea, drawing on the readings of the day’s liturgy, Leo XIV provided beneficial steerage on the right way to method the studying of Sacred Scripture. “All of the texts of Scripture reveal their true that means in religion, as a result of they had been written and handed all the way down to us by means of religion. Studying them, due to this fact, is all the time each a private and an ecclesial act; it’s by no means one thing completed in isolation or in a merely mechanical method. Collectively we learn Scripture because the shared heritage of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, who impressed its composition, and by Apostolic Custom, which has preserved and transmitted it all through the world.”
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Within the ultimate a part of his homily, Leo XIV recalled that the dwelling supply of the Church’s mission is the expertise of the Lord’s gratuitous love: “He all the time loves us first. His phrase is the Good Information for us, and we have now nothing larger to proclaim to the world. All of us are known as to this evangelization from the second of our Baptism, the sacrament of fraternal unity, the cleaning water of forgiveness and the supply of hope. Via our witness, the proclamation of salvation is made seen in motion, service and forgiveness — in a phrase, it turns into the Church.”
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The Pope recalled the opening of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “The enjoyment of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus.” He inspired everybody, “because the dwelling Church in Equatorial Guinea, to hold on the mission of Jesus’ first disciples with pleasure. As you learn the Gospel collectively,” he concluded, “proclaim it with ardour, simply because the deacon Philip did. And as you have a good time the Eucharist collectively, bear witness by means of your lives to the religion that saves, in order that God’s phrase might grow to be good leaven for all.” (Fides Information Company, 23/4/2026)
