St. Joseph Catholic Church

BAMENDA, Cameroon (CNS) -- "The voices in the bushes." That is the fear that defines daily life for many residents of this city in Cameroon’s troubled Anglophone region.

"You don’t know where they are," Cajetan Nfor told Catholic News Service April 16. "You don’t know how many of them there are." A resident of Bamenda since 1964, Nfor has witnessed firsthand the rapid decline of the city he calls home.

What began in 2016 as a political protest movement led by English-speaking teachers and lawyers over claims of professional and political marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority government quickly escalated into violence. Armed separatist groups emerged in the Anglophone regions, initially with some support from residents.

But as time went on, the movement shifted, and the separatist groups began terrorizing their own.

Armed groups began abducting civilians, looting businesses and enforcing their control through fear. Today, residents in northwest Cameroon say they live caught between separatist fighters and government forces, both capable of violence. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2024 that more than 6,000 civilians have died at the hands of both sides after a decade of conflict.

Thousands have been kidnapped, many killed, while others have been sexually assaulted, beaten and held for ransom.

Among them was Sister Carine Tangiri Mangu, a Sister of St. Anne, who told Pope Leo XIV during a community meeting April 16 that she and a priest were taken "into the bush" in November 2025 and held for three days.

They were denied food, water and sleep.

"We went on hunger strike and explained to our captors that we were just doing our work for the poor people and had nothing to do with the politics," she said at the meeting, which included local representatives from different faiths and traditions. "They demanded us to give telephone numbers so that they could collect ransom."

They prayed the rosary continuously, she said and were eventually freed after local Christians negotiated their release.

Other residents at the meeting with the pope shared similar accounts with Catholic News Service, describing abductions for ransom and beatings carried out while family members listened over the phone.

Anglophone separatist groups in Cameroon, which began fighting for independence of the country's English-speaking regions, have increasingly turned to criminal activities to finance their rebellion, alongside a rise in violence against civilians. In the first half of 2024, the northwest region ranked as the second most dangerous administrative area for civilians in Africa, behind only Al-Jazirah state in central Sudan, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

In addition to their fear of the separatists, many residents fear suspected reprisals from the military. Twice in the span of a week last month, Nfor said he woke up to gunshots on his street. Both times, he stepped outside to find the corpses of two residents sprawled on the road, roughly 500 meters from his home. 

His road, he said, has become a "dumping ground," where heavy rains can wash the corpses away. He believes those killed were victims of "regular enforcements of law and order." Human Rights Watch reported in 2024 that the military has been known to target local civilians outright.  

Before the crisis, he remembers a very different Bamenda -- a vibrant city of 630,000, where this kind of fear did not linger.

"You can imagine a river, just rumbling slowly going, and you are on a boat enjoying the ripples," Nfor said. "That was the kind of life that was here."

That life has completely disappeared.

Once one of the country’s most economically active cities, Bamenda has been hollowed out by years of conflict. Business owners have fled after repeated looting and abductions. Farmers struggle to work their land for fear of abduction and killings. Roads are dangerous as separatists have strongholds along major routes, and goods rarely move freely.

Food prices have soared, and access to medical care is limited as the region has become increasingly cut off.

"No one stays out after 7 p.m.," Nfor said. "If you are still hanging out and you don’t have transport… it becomes impossible."

Even short journeys have become ordeals. Trips that once took a few hours can now take up to half a day, as drivers avoid conflict zones.

For Joseph Kitu, the violence has made returning to his home village impossible.

"For the past ten years, our lives have been miserable," he told CNS while waiting for the pope to arrive at the community meeting. "We have lost relatives. They burned homes, looted our properties. I'm an orphan. My parents have all died because of this."

As soon as Pope Leo arrived in war-torn Cameroon April 15, he did not shy away from bringing a message of peace that directly confronted the suffering the people face every day.

In clear, direct language, the pope spent his time in Cameroon denouncing violence, corruption and exploitation, while calling for reconciliation and credible leadership. He has repeatedly framed peace not as an abstract ideal, but as a responsibility shared by political leaders, communities and individuals alike. 

When addressing the diplomatic corps in his first stop to Cameroon, he urged leaders to move beyond paralysis and fear.

"We are living at a time when hopelessness is rampant and a sense of powerlessness tends to paralyze the renewal so deeply desired by peoples," he said in Yaoundé at the presidential palace April 15. "There is such a hunger and thirst for justice! A thirst for getting involved, for a vision, for courageous choices and for peace!"

The pope began his call for peace in the country during an address to the diplomatic corps and 93-year-old President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982 and whose long rule has drawn criticism from opposition figures and human rights groups.  Quoting his spiritual father, St. Augustine, the pope said the saint believed those who rule should do so to serve the people, and they should rule "not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe others." 

"From this perspective, serving one’s country means dedicating oneself, with a clear mind and an upright conscience, to the common good of all people in the nation," he said.

Throughout this leg of his apostolic journey, which covered hundreds of miles and three cities, Pope Leo condemned what he described as a global system that fuels conflict for gain. After residents described fear, loss and exhaustion during the April 16 meeting, the pope acknowledged both the violence within the country and the forces beyond it that have deepened the crisis.

"The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild," he said during the community meeting in Bamenda. "Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilization and death."

"Added to these internal problems which are often fueled by hatred and violence, is the damage caused from outside, by those who, in the name of profit, continue to lay their hands on the African continent to exploit and plunder it," Pope Leo said later April 16 in a homily during Mass at the Bamenda International Airport to an estimated crowd of 20,000.

The depletion of a land rich in resources and marked by suffering was a theme the pope returned to repeatedly.

"It is a world turned upside down, an exploitation of God’s creation that must be denounced and rejected by every honest conscience," the pope said at the community meeting, describing the exploitation of both people and land. "The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters!"

That is how he urged Cameroonians not to give in to resignation after years of violence -- by working together and serving one another no matter what.

"This is the moment to change, to transform the story of this country," Pope Leo said in his homily in Bamenda. "The time has come -- today and not tomorrow, now and not in the future."

His presence alone has already had an effect on the Anglophone region of Cameroon. After years of neglect, Bamenda’s airport was repaired ahead of the papal visit, and the main road into the city was completed, making travel easier for residents, some locals told Catholic News Service. 

Religious leaders in the region have begun pushing for dialogue between the government and separatist groups, describing the conflict as one of the world’s "forgotten crises." Reverend Fonki Samuel Forba of the Presbyterian Church said the Vatican has shown willingness to support mediation efforts.

At a community meeting, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda told the pope that his visit came at a critical moment, saying that the soil of Bamenda has "drunk the blood of many of our children." 

"Bamenda will never forget that you visited them and prayed for them, and more especially, you visited them when they needed you most," Archbishop Fuanya said following the pope’s homily at Mass at the airport. 

For many residents, however, the path to peace is complicated by the realities on the ground. Years of instability have created incentives for young fighters to remain in armed groups.

"How would you watch somebody who made $5 or $2 a week and then suddenly he is earning $200 a day?" Nfor said. "How do you want him to leave his gun?"

The pope addressed that reality directly, especially in his appeal to young people -- the very group most vulnerable to recruitment into armed groups.

"Dear young people … Be the first faces and hands that bring the bread of life to your neighbors, providing them with the food of wisdom and deliverance from all that does not nourish them, but rather obscures good desires and robs them of their dignity," he said during a Mass April 17 outside the Japona Stadium in Douala to a crowd of more than 120,000. "Do not let yourselves be corrupted by temptations that waste your energies and do not serve the progress of society."

Pope Leo urged them to see their future not in violence or quick profit, but in rebuilding their communities.

"Do not forget that your people are even richer than this land, for your treasure lies in your values: faith, family, hospitality and work," he said at the outdoor Mass. He called on them especially to "proclaim the Gospel unceasingly."

In a speech at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Duoala, Pope Leo continued this concept, saying that in order for change to occur, students need to lean into moral discernment. 

"No society, in fact, can flourish unless it is grounded in upright consciences, formed in the truth," he said to professors and students April 17. "Do not look the other way: this is a service to the truth and to all humanity." 

Many told CNS the pope’s visit has rekindled hope.

Jeneth Moki said she has lived through years of what she called "sad patience," watching friends and family members die while fearing for her own safety.

"If I go [to my village], I will not come back," Moki said ahead of the April 16 community meeting. "They’re going to abduct me."

The pope himself seemed to recognize both the pain and resilience of the people before him.

"How beautiful are your feet as well, dusty from this bloodstained yet fertile land that has been mistreated yet is rich in vegetation and fruit," he said during the community meeting. "Your feet have brought you this far, and despite the difficulties and obstacles, they have remained on the path of goodness."

Addressing those who have endured years of suffering, Pope Leo said: "Bamenda, today you are the city on the hill, resplendent in the eyes of all! Sisters and brothers, be the salt that continuously gives flavor to this land. Do not lose your flavor, even in the years to come!"

The people at that meeting echoed that optimism. Regina Anchang said some people traveled for hours, days in advance, just to be present for the visit. Out of the entire world, she said, their community feels seen.

"We need nothing more than peace," she said.

Again and again, the pope framed peace not simply as the absence of violence, but as something built through concrete acts of solidarity.

"There is bread for everyone if it is taken, not with a hand that snatches away, but with a hand that gives," Pope Leo said during his homily in Douala, urging both leaders and the community to reject exploitation and choose mutual responsibility.

Each act of solidarity, he said, becomes "a morsel of bread for humanity in need of care," but there also needs to be more.

"This alone is not enough: the food that sustains the body must be accompanied, with equal charity, by nourishment for the soul -- a nourishment that sustains our conscience and steadies us in dark hours of fear and amid the shadows of suffering," the pope said in Douala. 

But translating that call for peace into reality for a country shaped by years of violence and distrust remains a challenge.

Vice president of Cameroon's national bishops’ conference, Bishop Philippe Alain Mbarga of Ebolowa, cautioned that the pope’s visit is not a "magic wand," and that the "walls of tribalism, the walls of hate," must be torn down.

"The people are calling on us to be responsible, to recognize that the destiny of humanity, of the country, is entrusted to us," he said in an interview with Catholic News Service. "They have called on political leaders, religious leaders and civil society to be responsible. Therefore, it is up to each of us to be aware of what is at stake."

Archbishop Fuanya told Pope Leo that the people "shall not waste the chance that your presence offers us to continue to work for peace and justice and reconciliation."

For now, residents return to their routines -- navigating danger and weighing hope against experience. In Bamenda, the voices in the bushes have not disappeared.

But amid the fear, another voice, the successor of Peter, has broken through -- one insisting that even here, in a place marked by violence, peace can still be chosen. 

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ANNABA, Algeria (CNS) -- In a country marred by hardship, deep faith and hard-won independence, Pope Leo XIV pointed to Algeria as a living witness to what he called the Church's "guiding principle above all," a charity that transcends power, binds community and makes peace. 

Throughout the first leg of his 11-day trip across Africa, the pope returned again and again to one idea: peace comes not through power or dominance, but through a sacrificial love, exemplified in Christ. 

In the Basilica of St. Augustine, his spiritual father, Pope Leo presented the Christians of Algeria as an example of this aspect of the Church’s mission, asking that they remain a humble and faithful sign of Christ's love.

"Your presence in this country is like incense: a glowing grain that spreads fragrance because it gives glory to the Lord and joy and comfort to so many brothers and sisters," he said during his final Mass in the country April 14. 

In his homily, he described a Church of charity, "where there is despair, she kindles hope, where there is misery, she brings dignity, and where there is conflict, she brings reconciliation."

"Therefore, in the face of poverty and oppression, the guiding principle above all for Christians is charity: let us do to those around us, as we would have them do to us," the pope said. "On the contrary, faith in the one God, Lord of heaven and earth, unites people according to perfect justice, which calls everyone to charity -- that is, to love every creature with the love that God gives us in Christ."

In his April 13 address to  Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the diplomatic corps, he pointed out that Algerians practice "sadaka" (meaning almsgiving and justice) "even for those of limited means," and how their "spirit of solidarity, hospitality and community is woven into the daily lives of millions of humble and upright people."

After being a French colony for more than 130 years, Algeria sought independence in 1954, sparking a war that left an estimated 1.5 million people dead. 

The pope highlighted Algeria's solidarity despite its years of hardship and conflict. He positioned Algeria as a teacher to economically wealthier countries, reframing what development means.

"Indeed, a religion without mercy and a society without solidarity are a scandal in God’s eyes," Pope Leo said. "Yet many societies that consider themselves advanced are plunging ever deeper into inequality and exclusion. Africa knows all too well that people and organizations that dominate others destroy the world, which the Most High has created in order that we might all live together."

During his address April 13 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, he spoke again on selfless love, saying the Church's work with disabled children shows how charity transcends "material help" and creates "an authentic community, where many people share moments of joy and sorrow, united by bonds of trust, friendship and fellowship." 

He furthered this message when speaking at a nursing home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, mirroring his repeated message that this sentiment is what builds the kingdom of God.

"Our Father's heart is not with the wicked, the arrogant or the proud," the pope said April 14. "God's heart is with the little ones and the humble, and with them he builds up his kingdom of love and peace, day by day, just as you are striving to do here in your daily service, friendship and life together."

It is precisely through charity that the pope said one performs acts of martyrdom, regardless of one's religion.

"After all, it is precisely love for their brothers and sisters that inspired the witness of the martyrs we have commemorated," he said in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa. "In the face of hatred and violence, they remained faithful to charity even to the point of sacrificing themselves alongside many other men and women, Christians and Muslims."

Throughout his two-day sojourn in Algeria, he spotlighted the selflessness of martyrs. Pope Leo’s first stop April 13 was the Maqam Echahid Martyrs' Monument, which commemorates those who died during the Algerian War. 

"Our presence here at this monument pays tribute to this history of Algeria and to the very spirit of a people who fought for the independence, dignity and sovereignty of this nation," he said. 

In the beginning of his speech to the diplomatic corps, he recalled the 19 religious men and women who were martyred during the Algerian War. 

By expressing this charitable love, the faithful find the ability to forgive and reconcile, ultimately leading to peace – Pope Leo’s biggest priority at the moment. 

For months, Pope Leo has been relentlessly consistent on his call for peace, particularly following the conflict in the Middle East. Pope Leo presented peace not as a vague ideal, but as a moral calling, rooted in human fraternity, justice and humility. 

 To a country overwhelmingly Muslim -- an estimated 99% identify as Sunni Islam -- he emphasized that Algerians and Christians alike are brothers and sisters because they share “the same Father in heaven.”

"In a world full of conflicts and misunderstandings, let us meet and strive for mutual understanding, recognizing that we are all one family!" he said to the diplomatic corps April 13. "Today, the simplicity of this awareness is the key to opening many doors that are closed."

From the start of his visit, he framed himself as “a pilgrim of peace." The pope said the world cannot continue to "add resentment upon resentment, generation after generation."

"In this place, let us remember that God desires peace for every nation: a peace that is not merely an absence of conflict, but one that is an expression of justice and dignity," he said at the monument. "This peace, which allows us to face the future with a reconciled spirit, is possible only through forgiveness."

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM ALGERIA TO CAMEROON (CNS) -- Following three days of public attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, Pope Leo XIV did not take questions from reporters in an in-flight press address, redirecting attention, instead, to his international trip across Africa and his spiritual father, St. Augustine.

Heading to the second country of his trip, Cameroon, the pope told journalists in a greeting of less than three and a half minutes that he was grateful for the warm welcome by officials, the people and the “very small, but very significant presence of the Catholic Church” of Algeria. However, he spent much of his address talking about the value of the teachings of this 4th-century saint today. 

“It was a special honor for me to return to Annaba yesterday also to offer the Church and the world the vision that St. Augustine offers us in terms of that search for God and the struggle to build community, to seek for unity among all people, and respect for all peoples in spite of the differences,” he said April 15 on the papal plane. 

Highlighting his stop at the Great Mosque of Algiers, he also reiterated the value of peace. 

“I think the visit to the mosque was significant and to say that although we have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshipping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace,” he said. “I think that to promote that kind of image is something which the world needs today and that together we can continue to offer and witness as we continue in this apostolic voyage.” 

The pope began his longest international trip thus far April 13 in Algeria, during which time U.S. President Donald Trump called Pope Leo “wrong” on geopolitical issues. When Pope Leo greeted reporters on the papal flight from Rome to Algeria, he addressed the president’s remarks, saying he was not a politician, did not want to enter into a debate with the U.S. president, and would continue to speak out against war. 

Thus far, the White House has only doubled down on its condemnations of the pope’s calls for peace, particularly in the Middle East. 

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic,  joined in, backing the president in two media appearances April 14, saying to Fox News, “it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic Church.”

“And let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said in the interview. 

At a Georgia college campus tour organized by conservative media group Turning Point April 14, Vance pushed back on Pope Leo’s Palm Sunday homily that God does not hear the prayers of those who make war, questioning if God was on the side of Allied forces in World War II, liberating Jewish survivors from concentration camps. 

When asked if he would apologize to the pope following Pope Leo’s comments on the papal flight, Trump replied, “No, I don’t because Pope Leo said things that are wrong.” 

Meanwhile, Pope Leo said that even though St. Augustine lived 1600 years ago, his words "have great relevance today." Speaking to Cameroon's President Paul Biya and the diplomatic corps at the presidential palace April 15, the pope said the saint believed those who rule should do so to serve the people, and they should rule "not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe others." 

"From this perspective, serving one’s country means dedicating oneself, with a clear mind and an upright conscience, to the common good of all people in the nation," he said in his first stop in Cameroon, whose president has led the country since 1982.  

He went further to state that religious traditions can help "inspire prophets of peace, justice, forgiveness and solidarity." When religious leaders are involved in mediation and reconciliation, then politics and diplomacy "can draw upon moral forces capable of easing tensions, preventing extremism and promoting a culture of mutual esteem and respect."

WASHINGTON – In light of recent public comments regarding the Catholic Church’s teaching on war and peace, Bishop James Massa, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, issued the following statement:

“For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war. A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’

“When Pope Leo XIV speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ. The consistent teaching of the Church is insistent that all people of good will must pray and work toward lasting peace while avoiding the evils and injustices that accompany all wars.”

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