Angola Africa Pope

Pope Leo XIV receives flowers he put under the statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Our lady of Muxima, on the seventh day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa, in Muxima, Angola, Sunday, April 19, 2026.

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Pope prays at Catholic shrine in Angola that was a center of African slave trade

Pope prays at Catholic shrine in Angola that was a center of African slave trade

Pope Leo XIV has traveled to pray at a popular Catholic shrine in Angola that was an epicenter of the African slave trade. Leo prayed Sunday the Rosary prayer at the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima. The church was originally built by Portuguese colonizers at the end of the 16th century. It was where enslaved Africans were gathered to be baptized by Portuguese priests before being forced to walk to the port of Luanda to be put on ships to the Americas. Leo's own American ancestors include enslaved people and slave owners. He recalled it was here “where, for centuries, many men and women have prayed in times of joy and also in moments of sorrow and great suffering in the history of this country.”