Pope Leo IV At Bamenda Cameroon; Obey God, Not Human Beings.

Bamenda, Cameroon; April 2026: While celebrating Mass dedicated to peace in Cameroon’s western city of Bamenda, Pope Leo XIV decries the numerous forms of poverty and injustice that afflict the region, and urges Cameroonians to entrust themselves to God and his Word in their struggle to create a future of peace and reconciliation. dedicated to peace, while warning the “masters of war” who pretend not to acknowledge that “it only takes a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild” and who spend billions on weapons but dedicate nothing to helping people heal.

The Pope travelled to Bamenda in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest, a region marked in recent years by tensions and violence linked to the Anglophone crisis, which has strained social cohesion, displaced communities, and deepened humanitarian needs. Some 20,000 people attended the event that took place in the grounds of the airport.

Expressing support for the people of Cameroon as they struggle to transform the story of the country and create a society in which peace and reconciliation reign, the Pope said he shares their hope “for a future of peace and reconciliation, in which the dignity of every person is respected and their fundamental rights guaranteed”. A hope, he added, that “is continually disappointed by the many problems afflicting this beautiful land”.

The Pope praised the joyful and vibrant liturgies and prayers of the faithful, calling them signs “of your trusting surrender to God, of your unshakeable hope and of your clinging to the love of the Father”. At the same time, he recognised “many situations in life that break our hearts”, and reiterated that hopes for peace and justice are often frustrated. The many forms of poverty that undermine hope. The Holy Father has then pointed to widespread poverty, including a food crisis and corruption seen above all, “in the management of wealth, which hinders the development of institutions and infrastructure”.

He highlighted the problems “affecting the education and healthcare systems, as well as large-scale migration to foreign countries, particularly of young people. 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”, he said.

Thus, he urged the faithful to act, and, interrupted by the applause of the congregation, he said: “The time has come, today and not tomorrow, now and not in the future, to restore the mosaic of unity by bringing together the diversity and riches of the country and the continent” to build a society based on peace and reconciliation.

While turning back to one of the testimonies, he highlighted how the crisis affecting Cameroon (an ongoing armed conflict between Separatists and the government) has brought the Christian and Muslim communities closer together. “Indeed, your religious leaders have come together to establish a Movement for Peace, through which they seek to mediate between the opposing sides”. Pope Leo shared his hope and desire that this could be possible in other places around the world. At the same time, he warned against people who “manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth”.

The Holy Father called for “a decisive change of course, a true conversion, that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity”. The world is “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters”.

Peace is not something to be invented. Rather, he stressed, it is something we discover when we embrace our neighbour as our brother or sister. Family is not something we choose, but people we must accept as we live together in the same common home.

Closing he recalled the words of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium: “My mission of being in the heart of the people is not just a part of my life…that is the reason why I am here in this world” (no. 273). It is with this same heart and mission that Pope Leo explained he came to Bamenda. Therefore, the Holy Father called each of us to be part of the silent revolution of walking together in our own vocations growing in concrete ways the mission of loving our neighbors. “As the Imam said, let us thank God that this crisis has not degenerated into a religious war, and that we are still trying to love one another”.

Team Maverick.