Vatican City
\nPope Leo blasted violations of international law by \u201cneocolonial\u201d world powers in a forceful speech on Monday during an Africa tour, hours after US President Donald Trump\u2019s direct attack on the leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church.
\nLeo is travelling to Africa \u201cas a witness to the peace and hope that the world so ardently desires,\u201d he told political leaders in Algeria, his first stop on a whirlwind four-nation trip.
\n\u201cThe future belongs (to) those who do not allow themselves to be blinded by power or wealth,\u201d the first US pope said. \u201cAfrica knows all too well that people and organisations that dominate others destroy the world.\u201d
\nLeo, originally from Chicago, did not single out specific countries for criticism, but he has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war in recent weeks and decried the \u201cmadness of war\u201d in a peace appeal on Saturday.
\nTrump, in an apparent response to the pope\u2019s statements about the conflict and the White House\u2019s hard-line immigration policies, said late on Sunday that Leo was \u201cterrible\u201d, in remarks that drew immediate rebuke from US believers.
\nLeo told Reuters on the papal flight from Rome to Algiers on Monday morning that he planned to continue speaking out against war, despite Trump\u2019s comments.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to get into a debate with him,\u201d said the pope. \u201cI will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships.\u201d
\nPope decries violations of international law
\nLeo, aged 70, relatively young and in good health for a pope, is undertaking one of the most complicated papal trips arranged in decades.
\nIt will take him to 11 cities and towns across Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, traversing nearly 18,000 km (11,185 miles) over 18 flights.
\nOn Monday in Algeria, the pope urged leaders in the country to build a society based on principles of justice and solidarity.
\n\u201cToday, this is more urgent than ever in the face of continuous violations of international law and neocolonial tendencies,\u201d he said.
\nLeo is making the multi-nation tour \u201cto help turn the world\u2019s attention to Africa\u201d, Cardinal Michael Czerny, a senior Vatican official and close adviser to Leo, told Reuters.
\nMore than 20% of the world\u2019s Catholics live in Africa, according to Vatican statistics. The three sub-Saharan nations the pope is visiting have populations where more than half identify as Catholic.
\nAlgeria, though, is an overwhelmingly Muslim country with under 10,000 Catholics among its population of some 48 million people. This is the first time it will host a Catholic pope.
\nPope to give 25 speeches on multitude of topics
\nLeo\u2019s tour is the 24th by a pope to Africa since the late 1960s.
\nHe is expected to touch on many topics in 25 planned speeches over 10 days, Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni told journalists on Friday, given that the four nations face diverse issues.
\nLikely topics include exploitation of natural resources, Catholic-Muslim dialogue and the dangers of political corruption, said Bruni.
\nCameroon and Equatorial Guinea have presidents who have been in power for decades and have been accused of human rights abuses, which they deny.
\nThe biggest event of the itinerary will likely come in Cameroon on Friday, when the Vatican said some 600,000 people are expected for a Mass in the coastal city of Douala.
\nComfortable in several languages, Leo is expected to speak Italian, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish during the trip.
\nAfter speaking to Algeria\u2019s political leaders on Monday, Leo will visit the Great Mosque of Algiers in only his second visit to a mosque as pope.
\nHe will travel on Tuesday to Annaba on Algeria\u2019s northeast coast, for a visit to the ruins of the ancient town of Hippo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vatican City Pope Leo blasted violations of international law by \u201cneocolonial\u201d world powers in a forceful speech on Monday during an Africa tour, hours after US President Donald Trump\u2019s direct attack on the leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church. Leo is travelling to Africa \u201cas a witness to the peace and hope that the world so …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":96273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96309,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96299\/revisions\/96309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}