Pope’s visit to Equatorial Guinea is a diplomatic challenge as he closes his Africa trip

LUANDA, Angola — Pope Leo XIV heads Tuesday to Equatorial Guinea for the final leg of his four-nation African journey, arriving in a country that presents perhaps the most diplomatically delicate challenge of this trip and his young papacy.

The former Spanish colony on Africa’s western coast is run by Africa’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 83. He has been in power since 1979 and is accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism.

The discovery of offshore oil in the mid-1990s transformed Equatorial Guinea’s economy virtually overnight, with oil now accounting for almost half of its GDP and more than 90% of exports, according to the African Development Bank.

Yet more than half of the country’s nearly 2 million people live in poverty. And rights groups including Human Rights Watch — as well as court cases in France and Spain — have documented how revenues have enriched the ruling Obiang family rather than the broader population.

Leo has shown he won’t mince words on this maiden African journey as pope, and the church’s teaching on the scourge of social inequity and corruption is clear. If Leo’s stop in Cameroon was any indication, the pope’s messaging in Equatorial Guinea might