Main Image: Pope with Archbishop Andrew releasing a dove outside the Bamenda Cathedral. Photo Credit: Vatican Media
Last week, Pope Leo XIV visited Cameroon on the second leg of his four-country Apostolic Journey across Africa. During his visit, the Pope made a number of powerful appeals: for peace in the country’s troubled Anglophone regions, for a renewed commitment to tackling corruption, for giving a future to the country’s young people.
Last week, in the midst of a pause in the ongoing violence in Cameroon, Pope Leo XIV travelled to our sister diocese, the Archdiocese of Bamenda. Click here for more information about his visit (Pope in Bamenda: ‘Woe to those who manipulate religion for military or political gain’ – Vatican News).
Speaking about the visit, Andrew Nkea Fuanya, the Archbishop of Bamenda and President of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, said that the visit had been a wonderful opportunity and that it was already bearing fruit.
“He came here with a very strong message for Cameroon and for Cameroonians, and you could see from his speeches that he came here determined to give us part of the social teaching of the church. We heard it.
“It’s a very important message for us in Bamenda, because no one can adequately understand what we have gone through except those who live there. People read things on social media, people hear stories, but those of us who live there are living permanently in trauma. For about eight years, Bamenda had been more or less abandoned. Our airport was not working, roads were broken, water was not flowing. So to get the Pope coming, and all these things start happening again, is a very big thing for us. You could see for yourself how joyful the population was. We have not seen that for a long time.
Archbishop Andrew said he had faith, not hope, that the visit would change things and in fact it has already started bearing fruit, and that the fruit will continue.
“For eight years, the airport of Bamenda has been closed. I flew in the Pope’s plane to Bamenda, the first time I’ve flown there in a plane. Suddenly the airport is open. The sophisticated equipment is functioning again. That is a miracle! If the Pope did not come, I can guarantee you it would never have happened. We have been dealing with very bad and broken roads, and suddenly Bamenda’s roads start getting tarred. They are fixing up the roads, putting up streetlights. This is a miracle! We have not seen this for ten years. So, we are not waiting for the visit to bear fruit. The visit started bearing fruit before the Pope came. This is the very first time in ten years that the government and the separatists are speaking the same language. Before, if the government said yes, the separatists said no, and if the government said ‘everybody come out’, the separatists would say nobody should come out. It was like a game. But with the coming of the Pope, both the government and the separatists were saying ‘Everybody come out. Everybody welcomes the Pope.
“So while we are hoping that we can get a durable and lasting peace, I think that the Pope’s coming already has brought us a tremendous blessing, and we have already started seeing the signs of peace.”
