Pope Leo XIV will make a 10-day Apostolic Journey to Africa and two others in Europe, the Holy See Press Office announced yesterday. Source: Vatican News.
The first visit will be a day trip at the end of March to the principality of Monaco, followed by a journey to Africa in April, and finally the six-day journey to Spain and the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands in June.
After the significant journey to Türkiye and Lebanon at the end of 2025 and after the announcement of the upcoming pastoral visits in Italy that will take him as far as Lampedusa, Pope Leo is resuming his pilgrimages throughout the world.
The longest – from April 13 to 23 – will see him following in the footsteps of St Augustine in Algeria, where he will visit Algiers and Annaba; then visiting Cameroon in Central Africa, with stops in Yaoundé, Bamenda and Douala; Angola, where he will visit Luanda, Muxima and Saurimo; and finally, Equatorial Guinea, where he will visit Malabo, Mongomo and Bata.
The length of this papal visit approaches that of St John Paul II in 1985, when he visited seven countries in 11 days.
Yet it is a lightning day trip to Monaco, scheduled for March 28, on the eve of Holy Week, that will inaugurate Pope Leo’s Apostolic Journeys for the first half of 2026.
The principality is a European reality where Catholicism is the state religion and where dialogue between civil institutions and the Church remains a matter of concrete importance in the public debate.
Finally, from June 6 to 12, Pope Leo will visit Spain – first the capital, Madrid, and then Barcelona, where he will inaugurate the newest and tallest tower of the Sagrada Familia, the monumental basilica that has reshaped the skyline of the Catalan city.
The visit falls on the hundredth anniversary of the death of Antoni Gaudí, the brilliant architect who “dreamed” the basilica by beginning to build it, and who last year was declared a Venerable Servant of God.
Pope Leo will travel to the Canary Islands archipelago, where he will visit Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
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Pope Leo XIV to make Apostolic Journeys to Africa, Spain and Monaco (Vatican News)
