EWTN News portal reports on testimonies from attendees of the closing Mass of Leo XIV’s 11-day apostolic journey to Africa, held at Malabo Stadium in Equatorial Guinea. The article, sourced from ACI Africa, presents four individuals—a parish priest, a religious sister, a radio station president, and a young tribal representative—who uniformly describe the event as a “profound experience of faith,” emphasizing spiritual encouragement, national pride, and consolation amid local tragedy. The narrative frames the visit as a grace-filled convergence of papal presence and African Catholic identity, with Leo XIV himself declaring he carries from the continent “an invaluable treasure of faith, hope, and charity.” Yet beneath this veneer of pious enthusiasm lies a profound theological and spiritual void—one that reveals not the triumph of the Catholic faith, but the triumph of the conciliar sect’s naturalistic humanism, its cult of personality, and its systematic evasion of the supernatural realities that alone constitute the Church’s mission.
The Absence of the Supernatural: A Faith Reduced to Sentiment
The testimonies collected in this article are remarkable for what they omit. Not a single speaker references the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary, the sacramental reality of the Eucharist, the necessity of the state of grace, the danger of mortal sin, or the eternal destiny of souls. Instead, “faith” is reduced to an emotional state—a “profound experience” characterized by “encouragement,” “peace, joy, and hope,” and the assurance that “we have God on our side.” This is not the faith of the Apostles, who preached Christ crucified and risen for the remission of sins; this is the naturalistic humanism of the conciliar revolution, which has replaced the supernatural order with psychological uplift and social solidarity.
Father Jose Fernando Liso speaks of “fatigue, hard work, ups and downs” and frames the visit’s significance in terms of “responsible decisions” for the “growth of our nation as a Church and of our nation as a whole.” The Church, in this formulation, is not the Mystical Body of Christ, the one true ark of salvation outside which there is no salvation (*Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*), but a national institution whose growth is measured by the same criteria as any secular organization. Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, taught that the Kingdom of Christ “encompasses all men” and that “the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ”—not as a source of national encouragement, but as the divine Lawgiver and Judge before whom every knee shall bow. The reduction of the papal visit to a catalyst for national development is a betrayal of the Church’s supernatural mission.
The Cult of Personality: Leo XIV as Tribal Chief
The testimony of Maria Lourdes Ndong Esono is particularly revealing. She recalls “walking from Malabo to the airport to see Pope John Paul II” alongside her pregnant mother in 1982 and expresses gratitude that “today I got to see Leo XIV.” The object of her devotion is not Christ, not the Blessed Sacrament, not the Blessed Virgin Mary—but the person of the pope. This is the cult of man that the conciliar sect has systematically cultivated since John XXIII, replacing the adoration of God with the veneration of ecclesiastical celebrities. The faithful are taught to thrill at the sight of the pope, to measure their spiritual lives by proximity to his person, and to interpret his presence as a guarantee of divine favor.
Narciso Pedro Nsue, president of Radio Maria Equatorial Guinea, declares that “the pope brings peace, joy, and hope to the entire country” and emphasizes that Equatorial Guinea is “the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa,” suggesting that the papal visit carries representational significance beyond ecclesial boundaries. Here the pope is not the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter entrusted with the deposit of faith and the governance of the Church; he is a diplomatic figurehead, a symbol of national identity and international prestige. This is the logic of the United Nations, not the logic of the Gospel. Christ did not say, “Go and make disciples of all nations by sending them diplomatic envoys”; He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
The Death of Father Nsue Esono: Justice Without Truth
Sister Gertrude Ehizokhale highlights Leo XIV’s reference to the death of Father Fortunato Nsue Esono, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Malabo, “in controversial circumstances,” noting that the pope’s words of consolation and call for “truth and justice” functioned as a stabilizing intervention for those who “were a bit discouraged.” The article provides no details about the circumstances of this death, the nature of the controversy, or the identity of those responsible. Yet the framing is telling: the pope’s role is to provide consolation and encouragement, not to proclaim the demands of divine justice, the reality of sin, or the necessity of repentance.
In the pre-conciliar Church, the death of a priest would occasion not merely words of consolation but fervent prayers for the repose of his soul, a solemn Requiem Mass offered for the propitiation of his sins, and a sober reminder to the faithful of the brevity of life and the certainty of judgment. The Council of Trent taught that the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice, offered to God for the living and the dead, for the remission of sins and the punishment due to them (Session XXII, Chapter 2). The conciliar sect has reduced this to a “memorial meal” and replaced the propitiatory sacrifice with therapeutic language about “encouragement” and “consolation.” The soul of Father Nsue Esono is not mentioned; his eternal destiny is not considered. He is a pretext for the pope’s performance of pastoral sensitivity.
The Tribal Representative: Syncretism as Evangelization
Ricardo Bibang Bonsundi, a 19-year-old representative of the Bixió tribe, attended the Mass “to extend greetings and welcome to the people and to Pope Leo XIV,” adorned in traditional attire. The article presents this as a heartwarming expression of cultural diversity, a sign of the Church’s embrace of African identity. But what is actually happening here? A young man in tribal regalia is welcomed into the liturgical assembly not as a convert who has renounced the superstitions and idolatries of his ancestors, but as a representative of a tribe, whose cultural identity is affirmed and celebrated within the very act of worship.
This is the syncretism that the conciliar revolution has unleashed across Africa and the entire world. The Church of Christ demands conversion—a radical break with the worship of false gods, the abandonment of superstitious practices, and the submission of every aspect of life to the kingship of Christ. Pius IX, in the *Syllabus of Errors*, condemned the proposition that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Proposition 15) and that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (Proposition 18). The conciliar sect has gone further still: it has opened the door to the legitimization of pagan cultural practices within the liturgy itself, transforming the Most Holy Sacrifice into a showcase for tribal identity and multicultural display.
The Hermeneutic of Continuity as Camouflage
The article’s framing of Leo XIV’s visit as a continuation of John Paul II’s 1982 journey to Equatorial Guinea is not incidental. It is an application of the “hermeneutic of continuity”—the conciliar strategy of presenting the post-1958 revolution as a legitimate development of the pre-conciliar Church, thereby obscuring the radical rupture that has occurred. John Paul II, whatever his personal piety, was a heretic and apostate who promulgated the *Catechism of the Catholic Church* with its ambiguities on religious freedom, who kissed the Koran, who prayed with animists at Assisi, and who “canonized” a host of dubious figures. Leo XIV is his heir, not his corrective.
The faithful who “walked from Malabo to the airport to see Pope John Paul II” in 1982 were, in all likelihood, practicing Catholics who still believed in the traditional faith. Today, their children and grandchildren are taught to thrill at the sight of Leo XIV, to describe his visit as a “profound experience of faith,” and to interpret his presence as a source of national encouragement. The faith has been hollowed out, replaced by sentiment, spectacle, and the cult of personality. The conciliar sect has achieved what the Church of Christ could never have achieved: it has made the Mass boring, the faith meaningless, and the pope irrelevant to the supernatural order.
The Silence of the Hierarchy: No Bishop Speaks of Doctrine
Not a single bishop is quoted in this article. The testimonies come from a parish priest, a religious sister, a radio station president, and a young layman. The absence of episcopal voice is symptomatic: the bishops of the conciliar sect have long since ceased to teach, govern, and sanctify in the manner demanded by their office. They are administrators of a global bureaucracy, not successors of the Apostles. They do not preach the kingship of Christ, the necessity of baptism, the reality of hell, or the obligation of Catholic states to submit to the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They attend synods, issue pastoral guidelines, and pose for photographs with tribal representatives.
Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, taught that “rulers and legitimate superiors” have the duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him” and that “the state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations, both male and female, who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church.” The bishops of Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Angola, and Algeria have not used this papal visit to proclaim the social kingship of Christ, to demand the submission of their nations to the law of God, or to warn their flocks against the snares of modernism, communism, and religious indifferentism. They have allowed the visit to be framed as a cultural event, a diplomatic occasion, a “profound experience” of collective emotion.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place
What is described in this article is not a papal visit in the Catholic sense. It is a spectacle—a carefully orchestrated performance of ecclesiastical celebrity, cultural affirmation, and emotional manipulation, devoid of doctrinal content, supernatural purpose, or propitiatory sacrifice. The “profound experience of faith” reported by the attendees is not faith at all, but sentiment; not religion, but religiosity; not the worship of the true God in spirit and truth, but the veneration of a man in a white robe who speaks words of encouragement and calls for “truth and justice” without defining either.
The true Church of Christ endures—not in the stadiums of Malabo, not in the structures occupying the Vatican, not in the testimonies of those who thrill at the sight of an antipope—but in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith, who offer the true Mass of the ages, who believe without hesitation or compromise in the unchanging deposit of revelation, and who await the day when Christ the King shall reign over all nations, not as a diplomatic figurehead, but as the Lord of lords and King of kings. *Adveniat regnum tuum.*
Source:
‘A profound experience’: Voices from Africa reflect on Pope Leo’s papal visit (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 25.04.2026