Leo XIV grows more combative after Trump attack on Africa trip

Donald Trump’s April 12 attack on Pope Leo XIV gave the first U.S.-born pope a sharper adversary and, in Africa, a sharper public voice. Leo, elected on May 8, 2025 as the first Augustinian pope, had built a reputation in his first months as a restrained mediator. On his 11-day tour of Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, that image has looked less secure. Leo said he had “no fear” of the Trump administration and did not want to get into a debate with Trump, but his remarks since then have sounded far more confrontational.

The opening stop in Algiers on April 13 put Leo in a country where the Catholic Church is tiny and history is politically charged. Vatican statistics put Algeria’s Catholic community at about 9,000 people in a nation of roughly 47 million Muslims. There, Leo called for peace and warned against “neocolonial tendencies” in world affairs, a message that carried added weight in a country shaped by anti-colonial memory and watched closely by leaders such as President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. The visit underscored how Africa, the fastest-growing Catholic continent, has become a central stage for the pontiff’s diplomacy.

By April 16 in Cameroon, Leo’s language had grown even harder. He denounced leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was being ravaged by “a handful of tyrants.” He also condemned the use of religious language to justify conflict, a pointed message in a country where the English-speaking regions have faced a simmering conflict for nearly a decade and thousands have died. The trip’s next legs in Angola and Equatorial Guinea are expected to keep him in contact with the same mix of local grievances, political fragility and church growth that has made the Africa tour one of the most consequential moments of his papacy so far.

The exchange with Trump has turned into more than a personal feud. It now pits the first American pope against an American president in a public clash over war, immigration and the moral authority of the Catholic Church. Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago and shaped by years of missionary work in Peru, was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church on a promise of balance and continuity. The Africa trip suggests a possible shift. Whether it is a one-off response to political provocation or the beginning of a more confrontational Vatican style, Leo is no longer speaking like a cautious steward alone.