EWTN News reports that on April 19, 2026, the usurper Leo XIV celebrated a “Mass” in Kilamba, Angola, before approximately 100,000 people, urging the country to “build the hope of the future,” overcome divisions, reject corruption, and recover hope for its youth. The report describes an “unmistakably African” atmosphere with traditional dress, scouts, military, and religious present. Leo XIV’s homily reflected on the disciples at Emmaus, drawing a parallel with Angola’s history of civil war and suffering, and called for a Church that “walks alongside” the people, rekindling hope through “the light of the word and the nourishment of the Eucharist.” He warned against “forms of traditional religiosity” that risk “confusing and mixing magical and superstitious elements.” He appealed for national renewal, overcoming hatred, violence, and corruption, and concluded with the exhortation: “Brothers and sisters, today we need to look to the future with hope and to build the hope of the future.” He also lamented attacks against Ukraine and encouraged peace talks in the Middle East. This entire performance, dripping with naturalistic humanism and devoid of any supernatural urgency, is a textbook demonstration of the conciliar sect’s systematic reduction of the Catholic faith to a program of horizontal solidarity, psychological comfort, and diplomatic niceties — while the eternal souls of the faithful are abandoned to the ravages of indifferentism and apostasy.
The Emmaus Metaphor: A Parable Stripped of Its Supernatural Heart
The choice of the Emmaus narrative as the centerpiece of Leo XIV’s homily is itself revealing. The Gospel account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) is, in its proper Catholic understanding, a profound revelation of how the Risen Christ opens the minds of the faithful to understand Scripture, and above all, how He makes Himself known in the breaking of the bread — that is, in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the unbloody renewal of Calvary. The disciples’ hearts burned within them as He spoke, and their eyes were opened in the Eucharistic act. This is the very essence of Catholic worship: the supernatural encounter with the living God in the sacramental economy established by Christ.
Yet what does Leo XIV draw from this passage? “A reflection of the history of Angola, of this beautiful yet wounded country, which hungers and thirsts for hope, peace, and fraternity.” The entire supernatural content — the Resurrection, the Real Presence, the necessity of faith and sacramental grace — is evaporated, replaced by a vague humanitarian aspiration. The “hope” he offers is not the theological virtue of hope, which orders man toward his supernatural end — eternal beatitude with God — but a purely natural, psychological disposition: optimism about Angola’s future. This is not the Gospel; it is the syllabus of Modernism enacted on an African stage.
St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), condemned the Modernist reduction of revelation to “merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20, Lamentabili sane exitu). Leo XIV’s homily is precisely this: the Emmaus story becomes a mirror for human suffering and a springboard for human effort, rather than a divine mystery demanding faith, conversion, and adoration. The “good news” he proclaims is not that Christ has redeemed the world by His Blood and offers eternal salvation through His Church, but that “He is alive, he has risen, and he walks beside us as we journey along the path of suffering and bitterness, opening our eyes so that we may recognize his work and granting us the grace to start afresh and rebuild the future.” This is the language of the United Nations, not of the Catholic Church. The “grace” he invokes is not sanctifying grace — the grace that cleanses the soul from sin and makes it a partaker of the divine nature — but a vague enabling power to “rebuild the future.” The entire homily operates on a purely horizontal plane, as if the Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord were merely the inspiration for a development project.
“Build the Hope of the Future”: The Conciliar Mantra of Horizontal Eschatology
The refrain “build the hope of the future” is not accidental. It is the characteristic slogan of the post-conciliar sect, which has systematically replaced the Church’s supernatural mission — the salvation of souls through preaching the Gospel, administering the sacraments, and leading men to eternal life — with a program of social engineering, psychological uplift, and political advocacy. Pius XI, in Quas primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” He declared that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The reign of Christ is not a metaphor for social cohesion; it is the objective, public, and binding authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ over every individual, family, and state.
Leo XIV’s exhortation to “build the hope of the future” contains no mention of Christ the King, no mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith, no mention of the social reign of Christ, no mention of the Church’s divine mandate to teach, govern, and sanctify nations. Instead, he offers a program: overcome divisions, reject corruption, practice “mutual love and forgiveness,” build “spaces of fraternity and peace,” and perform “acts of compassion and solidarity.” This is the language of the 1960s revolution, not of the perennial Magisterium. It is the language of Gaudium et Spes and Fratelli Tutti, not of Quas Primas or the Syllabus of Errors.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned the proposition that “the Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free — nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder” (Proposition 19), and that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Proposition 55). The Church, as Pius XI taught, “demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” Yet Leo XIV’s entire discourse is framed in terms acceptable to any secular government, any NGO, any international body. There is no assertion of the Church’s divine rights, no claim of Christ’s kingship over Angola, no demand that the Angolan state recognize the Catholic religion as the only true religion and govern accordingly. The “hope” he offers is one that any atheist, any Muslim, any adherent of any false religion could endorse — because it has been stripped of every specifically Catholic content.
The Warning Against “Traditional Religiosity”: A Veiled Attack on African Catholic Identity
Perhaps the most revealing passage in the entire homily is Leo XIV’s warning against “forms of traditional religiosity that certainly belong to the roots of your culture, but at the same time risk confusing and mixing magical and superstitious elements that do not aid your spiritual journey.” He continues: “Remain faithful to what the Church teaches, trust your pastors, and keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, who reveals himself in the word and in the Eucharist.”
This passage, while superficially reasonable, contains several layers of modernist subtext. First, it implicitly delegitimizes the lived faith of African Catholics, reducing their devotional practices — many of which are perfectly orthodox expressions of Catholic piety — to “magical and superstitious elements.” This is the classic colonialist-modernist posture: the “enlightened” European (or European-trained) authority figure condescendingly instructing the “primitive” faithful to abandon their customs and submit to the centralized, bureaucratized religion of the conciliar sect. It is the same spirit that drove the liturgical revolution of the 1960s, which stripped the Mass of its sacred character and replaced it with a banal assembly centered on the community’s self-expression.
Second, the phrase “what the Church teaches” is deliberately ambiguous. Which Church? The Church of the New Advent, which has abandoned the integral Catholic Faith and embraced the errors condemned by St. Pius X, Pius IX, and their predecessors? The “Church” that now promotes religious liberty, ecumenism, and the equality of religions — all condemned in the Syllabus of Errors (Propositions 15, 18, 77)? When Leo XIV says “trust your pastors,” he means trust the very bishops and priests who have been systematically dismantling the Catholic Faith for six decades, who have emptied the seminaries, closed the convents, and replaced the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a Protestantized memorial meal. This is not a call to fidelity; it is a call to submission to apostasy.
Third, the assertion that Jesus “reveals himself in the word and in the Eucharist” is, in the context of the conciliar sect, a profound deception. The “word” as understood by the post-conciliar church is not the immutable deposit of Faith guarded by the Magisterium, but a historically conditioned, evolving “revelation” subject to the judgments of critical scholarship — precisely the error condemned in Lamentabili (Propositions 4, 11, 20-22). And the “Eucharist” as celebrated in the conciliar structures is, by the admission of many of its own architects, no longer understood as a propitiatory sacrifice but as a communal meal — a change so radical that Cardinal Ratzinger himself (the future Benedict XVI) acknowledged it represented a “break” with the Church’s perennial understanding. The faithful who receive “communion” in these structures are, in the judgment of many serious theologians, participating in an act that is at best of doubtful validity and at worst a sacrilege. Leo XIV’s exhortation to “keep your gaze fixed on Jesus” in this context is not a call to adore the true Christ present in the Holy Eucharist; it is a call to fix one’s gaze on the conciliar Christ — a Christ emptied of His divine prerogatives, reduced to a symbol of human solidarity, and made to serve the agenda of the New World Order.
The Silence on Conversion, the Sacraments, and the State of Grace
The most damning indictment of Leo XIV’s homily is not what it says, but what it omits. There is no mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith for salvation. There is no mention of the sacraments as necessary means of grace — no call to confession, no exhortation to receive the Eucharist worthily (which presupposes an understanding of the Real Presence that the conciliar sect has systematically undermined). There is no mention of the state of grace, of mortal sin, of the danger of damnation. There is no mention of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mediatrix of all graces, as the necessary intercessor between God and man — he entrusts Angola to “the protection of the Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Muxima,” but this is a perfunctory gesture, not a theological assertion of her unique role in the economy of salvation.
There is no mention of the social reign of Christ the King over Angola. There is no call for the Angolan government to recognize the Catholic Church as the one true Church and to govern in accordance with Catholic principles. There is no condemnation of the errors that have devastated Angola — not merely “corruption” and “divisions,” but the far more deadly errors of religious indifferentism, secularism, and the denial of Christ’s kingship. Pius IX, in Qui pluribus (1846), warned that “the Church has always taught, and teaches today, that there is no salvation outside of the Church” (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). This dogma, confirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), by the Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII (1302), and by countless papal documents, is entirely absent from Leo XIV’s discourse. Instead, he offers a “hope” that is compatible with any religion or no religion at all.
The Diplomatic Coda: Peace as the Highest Good
The final paragraphs of the report describe Leo XIV’s references to international crises: the “recent intensification of attacks against Ukraine” and the “announced truce in Lebanon.” He “lamented” the suffering, “expressed his closeness,” and “renewed his appeal for the weapons to fall silent and for the path of dialogue to be followed.” He “encouraged those engaged in a diplomatic solution to continue peace talks for the end of hostilities throughout the Middle East.”
This is the language of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, not of the Vicar of Christ. The Church’s mission is not to broker ceasefires between warring nations — a task that belongs to the temporal authority — but to proclaim the Gospel, administer the sacraments, and lead souls to eternal salvation. Pius XI, in Quas primas, taught that “the peace of Christ” is found only “in the Kingdom of Christ,” and that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” Leo XIV’s appeals for “dialogue” and “diplomatic solutions” are not merely inadequate; they are a betrayal of the Church’s prophetic mission. They reduce the Vicar of Christ to the level of a UN secretary-general, concerned with temporal peace while the eternal souls of millions are perishing in ignorance, error, and sin.
Moreover, the selective nature of these appeals is telling. There is no mention of the persecution of Catholics in China — the very country whose financing built the city of Kilamba where this “Mass” was celebrated. There is no mention of the genocide of Christians in Nigeria, the Middle East, and other parts of Africa. There is no mention of the abortion holocaust, the gender ideology plague, or the systematic destruction of the family by secular governments worldwide. The “peace” Leo XIV advocates is not the peace of Christ, which is ordered toward eternal salvation; it is the peace of the world, which is often nothing more than the tranquility of injustice.
The “Unmistakably African” Atmosphere: Inculturation as Syncretism
The report takes care to note that “the atmosphere at the papal Mass was unmistakably African,” with “many” wearing “traditional Angolan dress” and the entrance procession accompanied by “a hymn marked by both faith and enthusiasm, hallmarks of the African crowds.” This is presented as a positive development, a sign of the Church’s “inculturation” — the process by which the Faith takes root in local cultures.
Yet the Church has always distinguished between legitimate inculturation — the adaptation of external cultural forms to the unchanging deposit of Faith — and illegitimate syncretism, which mingles the worship of the true God with elements of pagan religion. Leo XIV’s own warning against “magical and superstitious elements” in “traditional religiosity” reveals the tension at the heart of the conciliar approach to inculturation: on the one hand, the post-conciliar church celebrates “African” expressions of faith; on the other, it warns against the very elements that make those expressions authentically African. The result is a sanitized, bureaucratized “African Catholicism” that is acceptable to the modernist establishment but emptied of the supernatural vitality that characterized the Church’s missionary efforts in previous centuries.
The true missionaries of the Church — the saints and martyrs who evangelized Africa — did not celebrate “traditional religiosity”; they preached Christ crucified, demanded conversion, administered the sacraments, and established the Church in her fullness. They did not seek to “walk alongside” the people in their suffering; they sought to lead them out of the darkness of paganism into the light of the Catholic Faith. The contrast between their approach and Leo XIV’s is the contrast between the Catholic Church and the conciliar sect.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Continues
Leo XIV’s visit to Angola is not a pastoral mission; it is a public relations exercise designed to project the image of a “Church” that is relevant, compassionate, and engaged with the modern world. It is the continuation of the conciliar revolution that began with John XXIII and has been carried forward by every usurper who has occupied the Vatican since 1958. The “hope” it offers is not the hope of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ and His one true Church; it is the false hope of human progress, diplomatic peace, and social cohesion — a hope that will ultimately be shattered when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The faithful who seek the true Christ — the Christ of the Gospels, the Christ of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Christ who reigns as King over all nations — must look elsewhere. They must look to the unchanging Tradition of the Church, to the teachings of the pre-conciliar Popes, to the witness of the saints and martyrs, and to the sacraments as administered by validly ordained priests in communion with the true Church. The conciliar sect, of which Leo XIV is the current figurehead, has nothing to offer but the bread and circuses of a world that is passing away. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church, there is no salvation. And the Church is not the conciliar sect; she is the society founded by Christ, governed by His lawful successors, and animated by the Holy Ghost until the end of time. Let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Source:
Pope Leo XIV in Angola: ‘Build the hope of the future’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 19.04.2026