- The basilica as a contradictory sign
- A building constructed by whom, for whom?
- Presence as a theological act
- Marian memory and gentle subversion
- The language of the middle way
- Church and politics in Africa: a systemic issue
- African Catholicism: Between Fidelity and Compromise
- What Leo XIV's journey reveals about the universal Church
- ✝ Biblical references
There are liturgical gestures that carry more weight than words. When Leo XIV celebrated the Eucharist on April 22, 2026, at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, he did not simply preside over a Mass. He took his place in a space charged with an ambiguity that all of sub-Saharan Africa could read into: a basilica built under the auspices of a regime whose leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has ruled without interruption since 1979, making him one of the world's longest-serving heads of state. All around, the faithful rejoiced. At the altar, the successor of Peter. In the official galleries, President Obiang and his son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, the vice-president convicted abroad for laundering money obtained through corruption. In this scene, the Catholic Church finds itself facing a question as old as itself: can bread and wine be consecrated close to power that tramples human dignity underfoot, without consenting? And if so, how?
This is not an abstract question. It resurfaces with every papal trip to countries where the Mass itself, despite itself, becomes a tool for legitimation. It forces us to reopen a theological issue that we sometimes believe to be closed: that of the relationship between liturgy, prophecy, and politics.
The basilica as a contradictory sign
A building constructed by whom, for whom?
The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mongomo is imposing, resplendent, visible from afar in this Central African country where oil resources have generated national wealth that is monopolized by a tiny fraction of the population. It is precisely this paradox that Leo XIV himself named in his first speech on Equatorial Guinean soil, lamenting that "the gap between a small minority and the vast majority has widened considerably." That the basilica is a product of this same exclusionary economy is obvious to everyone. Oil revenues have financed extravagant facilities while the vast majority of the population remains mired in poverty, malnutrition, and lack of access to healthcare.
Should we, therefore, refuse to enter the country? Some human rights organizations had called for this, even urging the Pope not to visit or, at the very least, to publicly denounce its violations. This is not the path Leo XIV chose. And this choice deserves to be evaluated not according to diplomatic strategy, but according to the principles of Catholic theology regarding action in the world.
Presence as a theological act
In the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament, presence is never neutral. When the prophet Amos enters the sanctuary at Bethel to proclaim the word of God, he does not endorse the cult that King Jeroboam II maintains there for political ends. He challenges it from within: «Go to Bethel and sin!» (Amos 4:4). This text, often read as a corrosive irony, says something essential: God dwells in holy places even when men pervert them, and it is precisely this divine presence that makes the prophetic word possible. The Pope in the basilica of Mongomo is perhaps this: not a consecration of the regime, but an entry into the sanctuary to resound with a word that power has not commanded.
This interpretation aligns with the thinking of Gustave Thils, a Belgian theologian of earthly reality, who reminded us that the Church cannot fulfill its mission in a sanitized world, but must engage with the concrete structures of history, even at the risk of disrupting them. Entering a basilica built by an authoritarian regime means accepting this risk—the risk of being manipulated, but also the risk of transforming the place itself into a space of truth.
Marian memory and gentle subversion
The dedicatee of the basilica is himself eloquent. The Immaculate Conception is not a trivial symbol in Central Africa. Mary, in contemporary African Catholic theology, is the figure of the Mater Dolorosa which accompanies peoples wounded by violence and injustice. Leo XIV did not fail to refer to it in his homily, calling on the faithful to become "builders of hope" in their country. This seemingly spiritual phrase carries considerable civic weight in a context where political hope has been confiscated by the concentration of power within a single family clan for nearly fifty years.
The invocation of Mary in this context is not an escape into mysticism. It is an affirmation: there exists a dignity prior to any regime, which no political decision can abolish, and which the Mother of God—herself descended from a colonized people, singing in her Magnificat the overthrow of the powerful (Lk 1:52) — embodies in an unparalleled way.
The language of the middle way
Speaking without naming: a prophetic rhetoric
Papal diplomacy, at least since John Paul II, has developed a two-tiered art of discourse: a spiritual message whose political implications are immediately apparent to those with ears to hear. Leo XIV employed this in Bata, during his meeting with young people and families at the stadium, emphasizing "the inalienable dignity of every person." This phrase, borrowed from the vocabulary of the Church's social doctrine, is in reality a theological time bomb in a country where human rights defenders are harassed, imprisoned, and silenced.
Not naming the regime is not cowardice. It is sometimes the only way to speak a truth that the other person might not hear if it were stated too directly. Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, architect of the Ostpolitik The Vatican, facing communist regimes, understood this well: presence where the Church is persecuted is better than absence in the name of principled purity. For the Vatican, it was not a matter of abandoning the truth, but of choosing the moment and the form of its expression. Leo XIV seems to have taken this lesson to heart.
The risk of recovery
But this middle ground carries a real danger that Catholic moral theology cannot ignore: co-optation. Mongomo's regime is not naive. It knows exactly what a papal visit represents in terms of symbolic legitimation on the international stage. Teodoro Obiang's presence alongside Leo XIV, in the basilica and during the official ceremonies, will be photographed, disseminated, and exploited. Images have a life of their own, often independent of the intentions of those involved.
Scripture itself warns against this mechanism. In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet speaks out against those who cry out, «The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!» to cover up their iniquities (Jeremiah 7:4). The house of God does not automatically protect those who claim to belong to it. And when a regime uses a papal visit as moral justification, it reproduces precisely the logic that Jeremiah denounced: making the sanctuary a screen for structural sin.
This is why the discreet but symbolically powerful visit to the prison in Bata must be seen as the essential counterweight to the Mass in Mongomo. By visiting the detainees—some of whom are very likely victims of the summary justice that international NGOs have been documenting for years—Leo XIV delivered to the regime a message that the liturgy alone might not have been sufficient to convey: No one is excluded from God's love, and therefore no one can be treated as subhuman.
Church and politics in Africa: a systemic issue
African Catholicism: Between Fidelity and Compromise
The situation in Equatorial Guinea is not unique in Africa. It crystallizes a tension that the Catholic Church experiences throughout the continent: how to be the Church of the poor in states ruled by regimes that exploit religion? Equatorial Guinean Catholicism, by virtue of its very demographics, is one of the pillars of national social cohesion. This strength confers upon it a particular responsibility. But it also makes it vulnerable to political manipulation.
The Cameroonian theologian Jean-Marc Éla posed this question with prophetic radicalism in the 1980s, insisting on the need for the African Church to "come down from its pulpit" and reach the villages where hunger, oppression, and structural injustice are rampant. This demand remains as relevant as ever. In a country where oil resources enrich a tiny minority while the people lack everything, the Good News cannot be merely spiritual. It must be embodied in a concrete commitment to justice, however diplomatically delicate that commitment may be.
What Leo XIV's journey reveals about the universal Church
The choice to end the African journey in Equatorial Guinea—after Algeria, Cameroon, and Angola—was not insignificant. Equatorial Guinea is the most politically complex country on the itinerary. It is also, paradoxically, one of the most Catholic. This tension between the vitality of the Church and political reality lies at the heart of what could be called "African ambiguity": a continent where popular faith is immense and sincere, but where power structures often contradict the values it proclaims.
The universal Church must therefore learn to read on two levels simultaneously. On the level of communion among the faithful, the papal visit is an invaluable grace, a confirmation of belonging to something that transcends borders and regimes. On the prophetic level, it is also a challenge. And it is precisely because Leo XIV was able to maintain these two registers in a tense unity—celebrating the Eucharist in the basilica and visiting prisoners on the same day—that his trip avoids the caricature of the pope as mere window dressing.
Nevertheless, while non-nominative speech can be strategically wise, it has a theological limitation: it leaves the regime free to interpret it as it sees fit. The social doctrine of the Church, since Populorum progressio until Laudato si'’, Yet, her position was clear: when human dignity is structurally violated, the pastor's silence—even a rhetorical silence—can become a form of complicity. This is the risk that Leo XIV accepted. History will tell whether this middle path was also the path to truth.
What is certain is that this Mass at the Immaculate Conception in Mongomo will remain in the annals of the pontificate as an ambiguous sign in the truest sense of the word — ambi-guus, which speaks of both sides at the same time. And in this very ambiguity, there is perhaps something profoundly evangelical: Jesus himself, sitting at table with tax collectors and sinners, often risked the scandal of proximity in order never to lose contact with those whose soul is at stake.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you… you will be my witnesses. (Acts 1:8)
The birth and expansion of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome under the action of the Spirit.
→ Explore the Codex Acts of the Apostles- Between a candle and a bar: Iranian Catholics confront the double game of diplomacy
- When Rome thinks about machines: the Catholic Church facing the challenge of artificial intelligence
- Silent witnesses at the crossroads of the East: Georgian Catholics, sentinels of Christian unity
- Following the audience on May 13, the Archbishop of Karachi appealed to Europe: it is time for Catholics to speak out more loudly.
I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. (Jeremiah 31:31)
Prophet of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the new covenant of the heart.
→ Explore the Codex Jeremiah
The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. (Luke 19:10)
The Gospel of Mercy: Jesus close to the poor, women and sinners.
→ Explore the Codex Luc- «"Do not be afraid!" — When the words of a pope become the echo of a God who knows man
- To love is to set out: love, freedom, and pilgrimage according to Pope Leo XIV
- Who is the real innkeeper of the New Testament? When tradition meets biblical truth
- The true story of the birth of Jesus: beyond the idealized image
- When the world kneels: Leo XIV's planetary rosary, a diplomatic act of the Spirit
- «"The world thirsts for hope": Leo XIV and social doctrine as resistance to dehumanization
- Magnifica Humanitas: when the Church speaks to all humanity, in its own language
- Mary, the compass of the Church: what Leo XIV reveals to us on this May 13th
🌍 1 Catholic country
With approximately 88,130 Catholics, Equatorial Guinea is one of the most Catholic countries in Africa, heir to a long Spanish and missionary presence. Evangelization began in the 15th century with Iberian missionaries…
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