{"id":64875,"date":"2025-12-03T13:38:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026"},"modified":"2025-12-03T14:12:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T14:12:33","slug":"pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo Hopes to Visit Africa in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span><b>Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his first international trip as pontiff on Tuesday, leaving Beirut on the papal plane after a six-day tour of Turkey and Lebanon.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>But he\u2019s already looking ahead to the next one, saying he hopes to visit Africa in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Leo singled out Algeria, where he says he would like to see the places from the life of Saint Augustine.<\/p>\n<p>Such a visit would help to &#8220;continue the discourse of dialogue and bridge-building between the Christian and the Muslim worlds,\u201d Leo said, as Augustine is still a respected figure in the mainly Muslim country.<\/p>\n<p>Leo, who assumed the papacy in May, belongs to the Augustinian order. It was founded in the 13th century and has nearly 3000 members in 50 countries.<\/p>\n<p>While in Lebanon, Leo praised the country\u2019s history of religious tolerance. He attended an interfaith meeting with the country\u2019s Christian patriarchs and Sunni, Shiite and Druze spiritual leaders.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican said a trip to Africa could also include Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.<\/p>\n<p>The first US-born pope, Leo also said he would &#8220;very much&#8221; like to visit &#8220;Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay&#8221;, as well as Peru, where he spent more than 20 years working as a missionary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Lesotho<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his first international trip as pontiff on Tuesday, leaving Beirut on the papal plane after a six-day tour of Turkey and Lebanon. But he\u2019s already looking ahead to the next one, saying he hopes to visit Africa in 2026. Leo singled out Algeria, where he says he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":64874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[242,1394,5663,245,5921,2494,2795],"class_list":["post-64875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa","tag-algeria","tag-islam","tag-lesotho","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-religion","tag-vatican"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pope Leo Hopes to Visit Africa in 2026 - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his first international trip as pontiff on Tuesday, leaving Beirut on the papal plane after a ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Leo Hopes to Visit Africa in 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his first international trip as pontiff on Tuesday, leaving Beirut on the papal plane after a ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-03T13:38:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-03T14:12:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/12\/sm_1764758440.897937.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Pope Leo Hopes to Visit Africa in 2026\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-03T13:38:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-03T14:12:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\"},\"wordCount\":218,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/12\/sm_1764758440.897937.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"Algeria\",\"Islam\",\"Lesotho\",\"Pope Leo XIV\",\"Religion\",\"Vatican\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/pope-leo-hopes-to-visit-africa-in-2026\",\"name\":\"Pope Leo Hopes to Visit Africa in 2026 - 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