Photos of the Week: Pope Leo in Africa, Bengali New Year
By Kit Doyle · April 22, 2026
(RNS) — Each week RNS presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo selection includes Pope Leo XIV in Africa, the Bengali New Year and more.
Pope Leo XIV is cheered by faithful while visiting a nursing home in Saurimo, Angola, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
People cheer as Pope Leo XIV arrives in Yaounde, Cameroon, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Welba Yamo Pascal)
Pope Leo XIV, with the Archbishop of Bamenda, Andrew Nkea Fuanya, left, releases a white dove at the end of a meeting for peace at Saint Joseph's Cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon, with the local community Thursday, April 16, 2026, on the fourth day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
People cheer as Pope Leo XIV visits the staff and patients of the “Jean Pierre Olie” Psychiatric Hospital in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Name tags attached to lanterns of who made donations for the upcoming celebration of Buddha's birthday at Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
People stand outside a Baptist church damaged by a Russian guided aerial bomb, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
People buy idols of Hindu deities Kali, Lakshmi and Ganesha from a roadside stall for Bengali New Year in Kolkata, India, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Bikas Das)
Hindus wait to offer prayers at the Kalighat Kali Temple for the Bengali New Year in Kolkata, India, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Bikas Das)
President Donald Trump speaks at a Turning Point USA event at Dream City Church, Friday, April 17, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
People drive their motorbikes past billboards showing the Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, top and right, and his father, the slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Local residents of Prey Popel village receive a holy water shower, which is believed to bring good luck, during Khmer New Year celebrations on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Archival Photos
Sister Stanisia, left, and Sister Wencestavita try to tempt their adopted fowl family to a meal at St. Joseph's Villa in Millmont, Pennsylvania, in 1975. When this year's visitor hatched her 11 eggs and started chasing her young ones around, the sisters noticed that it was the same lame duck who had hatched eggs the year before. "She seemed to know just where everything was supposed to be," said Sister Stanisia, who was caring for the mother and her brood at the Villa, the infirmary of the Bernardine Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis. The nuns said the ducks had become a point of fascination to the human inhabitants of the convent. (RNS archive photo by Richard J. Patrick. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.)
Catholics pray before an altar in Fort Cota in Ozamis, on Mindanao island in the Philippines, following an earthquake that heavily damaged the 149-year-old fort in 1955. (RNS archive photo by Jose Castro. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.)
