Monthly Archives: November 2023

7, November 2023

Biya’s 41 Years in Power: The scorecard is dismal! ⁰

Today marks forty-one years since Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, took over from the country’s first President, Amadou Ahidjo, who resigned supposedly for health reasons. Ahidjo, the man who had made Cameroon the purpose of his being, had always dreamed of transforming the country into an earthly paradise.

He had designed the educational system to enable Cameroonians compete favorably at the international level. The quality of education was good and this helped the country to make giant strides towards sustainable development. Though the country was bereft of massive financial resources, the country’s first president made up for this shortage of financial resources with discipline and determination.

Due to the lack of resources, the country did not have a good road network, but from 1977 when oil was discovered, the country’s fortunes changed for the better. Many infrastructure development projects were lined up and their implementation was marked by rigor and discipline.

But this changed in 1982 when Mr. Biya succeeded Ahidjo. Though he had served as the country’s Prime Minister under Ahidjo, he had not learned that discipline was a key ingredient in the implementation of national policies and projects. No initiative succeeds without discipline!

By 1985, the country’s economy and politics were already showing signs of chaos. Discipline which characterized the Ahidjo regime had taken French leave of the Biya regime. Mr. Biya, unlike Ahidjo, had prioritized loyalty over competence and this has cost the country a huge fortune. He brought his tribesmen into government without conducting the proper background checks and there are lots of crooks and dishonest people in the system.

Though the Centre and South regions of Cameroon account for less than 10% of the country’s population, Mr. Biya tribesmen make for more than 70% of appointed government officials, with many not having the appropriate experience and qualifications to drive major operations and policies!

Today, the country has one of the worst road networks on the continent. Each day, thousands of Cameroonians die of road accidents and, for decades, the government has not found it necessary to develop road infrastructure which will reduce both travel times and death toll on the country’s roads. Times have changed but the Biya regime is frozen in time.

Regarding the economy, things are not looking good for the country. Unemployment is high; many young Cameroonians are looking outward. Government policy regarding employment in the civil service has left many from other tribes desperate. Loyalty trumps over qualification and in certain cases, many people have been caught with fake certificates, especially people from the president’s tribe.

Universities which are supposed to serve as centers of excellence have been transformed into brothels as the culture of sex-for-marks has been fully entrenched and this is happening with the tacit approval of the country’s authorities. The country’s higher education minister, Fame Ndongo, has been presiding over this mess as he himself has been at the centre of massive sex scandals in the ministry he leads.

Mr. Biya and his ruling CPDM may be celebrating today, but they know they have brought untold hardship on Cameroonians. Most young Cameroonians want to leave the country and even retirees are relocating to countries like the U.S and Canada because their retirement incomes leave much to be desired.

The country is amongst the dirtiest on the continent with its towns and cities not going through any form of town planning. The government does not seem to have an inkling of structured existence as slums are popping up all over the nation.

Regarding security, the government is struggling. Crime rate has increased significantly, with soldiers and police officers even renting out their weapons to criminals for a fee. Even when the population reports a crime, the police hardly act. It is always a waste of time for police officers to be called to the crime scene as they will never make it.

Either there is no fuel in the car for them to use, or when there is a car, there is no fuel. Sometimes, security forces even seek to know the type of weapons the criminals are carrying. This is to ensure that they do not get into a fierce fight with heavily armed criminals. Kind police officers will even tell the frightened victims to call neighbors to help them. That is the country Mr. Biya will be leaving for future generations.

Mr. Biya has been a master at divide-and-rule. He has succeeded to pit tribes against tribe, and there is evidence that the day he exits, there will be bloodshed in the country. Currently, there are killings going on in Southern Cameroons where a fierce rebellion against the Yaoundé government has sent some ten thousand Cameroonians to an early grave and things could get worse if Mr. Biya suddenly dies.

For the public service, it is the worst the continent has. Corruption is rife and Cameroonians have to pay millions of francs to get admission into professional schools. Every sector of the public service has come up with a scheme to exploit the ordinary citizen and the country’s authorities have decided to look the other way while government officials exploit their fellow citizens.

Cameroon under Mr. Biya has been a living hell. Many Cameroonians prefer to look outwards as the government has failed to create opportunities for its citizens. 41 years in power have rolled the country back into grinding poverty and, in development terms, the country has been taken back by at least 100 years. Today’s celebrations could be described as a celebration of failure, inefficiency, greed, corruption and dishonesty. This is the legacy Mr. Biya will be leaving behind.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

6, November 2023

Mamfe: 20 killed in Egbekaw village attack ⁰

Separatist rebels killed around 20 people, including women and children, on Monday in Egbekaw a village in Mamfe the chief town in Manyu.

The overnight attack occurred in Egbekaw village, the scene of deadly clashes between rebels and government forces for seven years.

“The attack left around 20 dead, men, women and children, and 10 seriously injured people are in hospital,” a senior regional administrative official said on condition of anonymity.

A security forces official and an official from a governmental body also confirmed the attack and provisional toll.

Cameroon’s primarily English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions have been gripped by conflict since separatists declared independence in 2017.

It followed decades of grievances over perceived discrimination by the francophone majority.

President Paul Biya, 90, who has ruled the central African nation with an iron fist for 41 years to the day, has resisted calls for wider autonomy and responded with a crackdown.

The conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and forced more than a million people to flee their homes, according to the International Crisis Group.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting.

Rebels “attacked the civilian populations of Egbekaw and the provisional toll is 23 dead and around 15 houses burnt,” a local gendarmerie officer told AFP by telephone, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

An official from the country’s human rights commission confirmed the attack and spoke of 15 dead. “But this figure can evolve,” the source told AFP.

There had been no claim of responsibility over the attack on Egbekaw.

“It happened at 4:00 am. Armed young people came and fired on sleeping residents in their houses and set a whole block of houses on fire,” a resident told AFP by telephone requesting not to be identified out of security concerns.

“Twenty-three people have already been removed from the debris, some of whom are not even recognisable because of the fire.”

He said there was reason to believe it was connected to the November 6 anniversary of Biya assuming power as president in 1982.

A meeting of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC) was planned in the area, he added.

Armed groups are regularly accused of abducting, killing or injuring civilians whom they accuse of “collaborating” with Cameroonian authorities.

Security forces are also often accused by international NGOs and the United Nations of killings and torture against civilians suspected of sympathising with the rebels.

Last month, rebels “summarily executed” two villagers in public in the Northwest region whom they accused of collaborating with the army.

In July, Amnesty International reported that security forces, separatist rebels and ethnic militiamen had committed “atrocities” in the Northwest Region, including executions, torture and rape.

By Alain Tabot-Tanyi

6, November 2023

Yaoundé: 77 private companies barred from public procurement ⁰

Seventy-seven private companies were denied government contracts last year, according to a document presented last October 27 by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Conac).

The decision followed cases of irregularities identified in the execution of the contracts previously awarded to them. These include issues such as incomplete projects, abandoned construction sites, and financial shortcomings.

As per the Public Contracts Code, the ban on participating in public procurement cannot exceed two years. Further violations by the same companies might lead to permanent exclusion, under regulatory guidelines. Apart from these bans, Conac did not outline any additional sanctions imposed on the affected companies.

Individuals or companies facing these restrictions are not eligible for administrative purchase order procedures or public contracts. While the government sees this as an effective means to filter bidders, some industry players believe it’s not effective against providers who simply change their company names or managers and reapply. In 2020, the Ministry of Public Contracts published a list of 369 providers suspended from public procurement, particularly for abandoning construction sites.

Source: Business in Cameroon

6, November 2023

Yaoundé: Biya marks 41 years in power ⁰

90-year-old Biya is marking today (Nov. 06) his 41 year-rule over the divided Cameroonian nation.

Last year, thousands gathered in Yaoundé, for the occasion but the president did not attend.

Paul Biya, a former Prime Minister, took the reins of Cameroon on November 6, 1982 following the resignation of the country’s first president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Many voices within the ruling CPDM crime syndicate have already called for him to vie in the 2025 presidential election for an 8th, 7-year term.

Critics of his regime, however, wore black on Sunday. Some cited corruption, bad governance, and an ongoing succession battle.

Biya who celebrated his 90th anniversary last February is Africa’s second-longest serving leader.

Under him, Cameroon has faced challenges in recent years that range from a secessionist movement in the country’s English-speaking regions to the threat in the north posed by Islamic extremists aligned with the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group.

Paul Biya last won a presidential election in 2018.

Source: Africa News

6, November 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Independence gone wrong! ⁰

Southern Cameroonians thought a new independent state would rid them of the marginalization they had been victims of in Cameroon for six years, but most of them are gradually discovering that marginalization is a lesser evil to the terrorism which is being practiced on them by their so-called liberators. Their dream of a beautiful Southern Cameroons has turned into a never-ending nightmare.

For over two years, the Yaoundé government had modified its war plan, walking away from collective killings and punishment to silent diplomacy, with the country’s Prime Minister, Dion Ngute, working hard behind the scenes to involve the Canadian government in talks which were supposed to bring peace to Cameroon.

Though the Prime Minister’s plan was scuttled by members of his own government, Mr. Ngute and his supporters have not relented when it comes to engineering peace in Southern Cameroons.

While the government has changed its ways in a positive way, the separatists, for their part, have also changed their ways, unfortunately in a very bad way.

They have become the face of death and destruction. Fighters, who said they were fighting the government in protection of their people, have today become a real millstone around the people’s neck.

Kidnappings, summary executions, extortion and intimidation have become their stock in trade. Those who said they were protecting their people, prompting huge financial contributions from the Diaspora, are those who are killing their own people in cold blood.

Today, Mamfe is in blood and tears. Separatists’ fighters have once more proven that if they had had an independent state, Afghanistan and other rogue nations around the world would have been better than Southern Cameroons.

Separatists’ fighters have chopped off the hands of their people just because their people wanted to work. They have robbed children in rural areas of their right to education. They have impregnated young girls, some of whom are less than 12 years. And today, many people cannot bury their loved ones in peace in many parts of Southern Cameroons. The so-called fighters charge the bereaved huges amounts of money if they want to bury their loved ones in their villages.

But it seems they are not yet done. Their list of crimes and sins is very long and very early today, they demonstrated in Egbekaw New Lay-out in Mamfe that their version of Independence is predicated upon extreme violence and death.

More than 25 people have lost their lives today in Mamfe through senseless killings and more than 20 homes have been burned. The criminals left the crime scenes once they set fire to those homes, unfortunately for them, some of their members were identified and they have already been reported to the gendarmerie brigade in Egbekaw-Mamfe.

In the past, apologists of these separatists would be quick to point out that some of those atrocities were being committed by the Cameroon army. The Mamfe District Hospital, one of the finest in the country, was burned down by these “fake fighters of independence” and a thorough investigation by the Cameroon Concord News Group clearly exonerated the military.

From burning houses and slaughtering soldiers, these separatists are today slaughtering their own people and they seem to take pleasure in killing the people they said they wanted to protect. Which liberators kill their own people and refuse their own children from going to school? Where in the world has a country developed without educated minds? Even in the Dark Ages, those with enlightened minds were the pillars of social engineering and development but in Southern Cameroons, a drug- and alcohol-inflamed bunch is dictating things, prioritizing illiteracy over literacy.

For more than seven years, these members of a cloak-and-dagger organization who pass off as liberators have been suffocating the Southern Cameroonian economy through sterile and meaningless “ghost town” operations which have left many unemployed and economically desperate.

Southern Cameroonians who saw hope through their rebellion, are today asking themselves if it was even necessary to challenge the Yaoundé government.

A noble struggle, once led by the mild-minded Sisisku Julius Ayuk Tabe, has been hijacked by people of the underworld who are using violence and intimidation to keep the people in check and in extreme poverty.

Nobody can stop these violent elements from causing havoc in places like Mamfe, except the residents of the town. Those who have sent some 25 residents of Mamfe to an early grave are the sons of Manyu. It will be preposterous for the people of Mamfe to think that their enemies have come from somewhere else.

The so-called revolution had failed. The revolution is consuming its own people. If the people of Mamfe in particular and Manyu in general have to put an end to this endemic violence, then they must cooperate with government security operatives.

They must report those criminals living in their communities to the government for proper action to be taken.

The Cameroon Concord News Group clearly condemns what has happened in Mamfe and has already despatched its reporters to Mamfe for a comprehensive coverage of this unfortunate situation.

More will be yours as the Group’s reporters file in their reports.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai and Joachim Arrey

3, November 2023

Top Francophone army generals to soon be punished for their crimes ⁰

The exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government has denounced the ongoing military campaign against Southern Cameroons villages and the loss of lives of civilians, stating that many of the Francophone army generals and their Anglophone acolytes will soon pay for their crimes.

On a Wednesday post on social media, Vice President Dabney Yerima said the French Cameroun genocidal machine is actively at work in the rural settlements in Southern Cameroons.

“French Cameroun war criminals and their known Anglophone advocates will soon kneel before the exemplary willpower and resilience of the Ambazonian nation; and will be punished for their crimes,” Yerima pointed out.

As of this week, at least 34 Southern Cameroonians have been killed by Francophone army soldiers among them women and children.

The exiled leader also stated that Anglophone journalists covering the war in Southern Cameroons are facing particularly high risks. Many have been killed and some have fled the country.

Dabney Yerima said due to the massive deployment of Francophone soldiers and raids on newspaper offices, journalists such as Nelly Epupa, Toto Roland Motuba and Ewang Miriam Metchane are now refugees in Europe and the US.

“The main challenge for journalists covering the Cameroon government military campaign in Southern Cameroons is their own safety” Yerima furthered.

“Journalists in Southern Cameroons have paid and continue to pay unprecedented tolls and face exponential threats,” Vice President Dabney Yerima concluded.

By Chi Prudence Asong

3, November 2023

Yaoundé: New Papal Nuncio to strengthen ties between Cameroon and the Vatican ⁰

The President of the National Episcopal Conference Archbishop Andrew Nkea has welcomed the new Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop José Avelino Bettencourt at the Nsimalen International airport.

As Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop José Avelino Bettencourt will represent the Holy Father in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The role is the equivalent to that of an ambassador.

His Grace Archbishop Andrew Nkea said best wishes and prayers to Archbishop José Avelino Bettencourt and expressed his hope that his appointment will strengthen relations between Yaoundé and Rome.

Reacting to the news, the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Cameroon Concord News Group the Right Honorable Soter Agbaw-Ebai said the coming to Yaoundé of an experienced Roman Catholic cleric who has spent most of his working life in the diplomatic service of the Holy See is a very significant appointment for the life of the Church in Cameroon.

Relations between Cameroon and the Holy See have greatly improved in recent years as there is now a much better understanding of the shared interests including the importance of peace and stability in Anglophone Cameroon.

The Portuguese-Canadian prelate was born in Velas, Azores, on 23 May 1962. He reportedly settled at a young age in Canada with his family and was ordained a priest in 1993 in the Archdiocese of Ottawa.

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1999 and obtained a doctorate in canon law at Pontifical Gregorian University. He worked at the apostolic nunciature to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then moved to the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.

On 14 November 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him head of the protocol of the Secretariat of State. He was also responsible for contacts with the embassies accredited to the Holy See and to the central Vatican authority.

On 26 February 2018, Pope Francis gave him the title apostolic nuncio and appointed him Titular Archbishop of Aemona. He was named nuncio to Armenia on 1 March and to Georgia as well on 8 March. He received his Episcopal ordination from Pope Francis on 19 March.

On 30 August 2023, Pope Francis appointed him as Papal Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

By Toto Roland Motuba with files

2, November 2023

Yaoundé launches airstrikes in Bakassi Peninsula creeks ⁰

Cameroonian air force has carried out airstrikes on the creeks of Akpankanya village in Bakassi Peninsula to flush out Biafra rebel group the Dragon Fighter Marine from the area, on Thursday 2 November, 2023.

However, no casualty has been recorded as at the time of report.

The attack is coming days after a suspected suicide bomber blew up oil installations at the maritime border of Bakassi.

Recall that the militant group executed numbers of members of the Rapid d’intervention Battalions, BIR, in the area few days ago resulting to retaliatory attacks by men of BIR which left two militants dead.

Simon Ekpa, a Finland based Biafra separatist leader sometime ago posted on Twitter he would aid the militant groups which he referred to as the Biafran Naval wing.

The Biafra Nations League, BnL, a group suspected to be the parent body of the Black Marine and Dragon Fighter Marine have continued to remain silent after threatening international businesses , oil exploitation in the Gulf of Guinea.

Source: Igberetv news

2, November 2023

646,000 Anglophones remained internally displaced in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Nearly 646,000 Cameroonians remained internally displaced in Northwest and Southwest as of September 2023 as conflict between non-state armed groups and government security forces persisted, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The conflict—which began in 2016—has resulted in human rights violations against civilian populations, the destruction of property, and the disruption of livelihood activities. Fighting has also hindered humanitarian assistance activities with reports of abductions of humanitarian actors and repeated lockdowns, the UN reports. An additional 428,000 people remained displaced in the Far North Region as of September 2023, where attacks by the Islamic State West African Province against the Cameroonian military and violence against civilians continue to drive both new and protracted population displacement and limit humanitarian access in the region’s Logone-et-Chari, Mayo-Sava, and Mayo-Tsanaga divisions. Several armed incursions during April and May 2023 displaced thousands of people in Mayo-Tsanaga’s Mayo-Moskota and Mokolo sub-divisions, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports.

Conflict and insecurity continue to disrupt livelihood activities, markets, and trade across Cameroon’s Northwest, Southwest, and Far North regions, resulting in reduced access to food and income and heightened staple food prices, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). In the Northwest and Southwest regions, sporadic clashes between government forces and non-state armed groups continue to impede households’ access to income-earning activities and inflate production and trade costs. The price of maize remained elevated during September despite the seasonal harvest; specifically, maize prices increased by an estimated 14 percent in areas of Northwest and 35 percent in Southwest, FEWS NET reports.

As of September 2023, nearly 477,000 refugees—sheltering mostly in the Adamaoua, East, and North regions— remained displaced by armed conflict, intercommunal violence, the effects of climate change, and political instability in neighboring Central African Republic (CAR), according to UNHCR. Many of these refugees are unable to return to CAR, primarily due to fears of ongoing violence, and currently live in poorly protected and crowded conditions without access to basic services or adequate livelihood opportunities. The influx of CAR refugees has strained host communities’ response capacity as resources for relief efforts and government-led social services remain limited amid growing needs in other areas of Cameroon.

Culled from Reliefweb

2, November 2023

“Marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Anything short of that is witchcraft” Archbishop Andrew Nkea ⁰

The first assembly of the Synod on Synodality enabled all to express their opinions and the views of African delegates on natural marriage and family were certainly heeded, but the event’s legitimacy continues to be questioned and the synod organizers should reveal a breakdown of voting, a Cameroon bishop has said.

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bemenda, one of 16 prelates who make up the synod’s ordinary council that oversees the running of the process, said the assembly went “much better” than he expected and that the “conversation in the spirit,” an innovation to tone down polemics, was helpful as it “calmed down tempers.”

In this Oct. 28 interview with the Register in Rome, Archbishop Nkea also discussed what particular contribution African bishops gave to the synod, and how they were able to correct passages on human sexuality in the final report.

“In Africa, we understand marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and anything short of that is witchcraft,” he said. “This is something we said very strongly.”

Archbishop Nkea also explained why he is not bothered by attempts to change the Church’s doctrine through the process (he believes they will fail), and why he considers efforts to upend the Church’s structure of governance originate from a human rather than spiritual point of view, and would mark the end of the Church were they to succeed.

Your Excellency, what is your overall assessment of the synodal assembly? How did it go and what were the most interesting, important aspects to you?

I would sincerely say that it went very well, much better than I expected. The synod atmosphere was completely different. Coming to the round tables, changing tables all of the time, gave the impression we’re working as a group. We’re not just talking to one small section, but able to meet different people, share different ideas on different subjects. That was a complete innovation which really gave everyone the chance to express themselves. It’s not like you took the floor and spoke for three minutes and that was it. No, on all of the subjects you had the chance to say what you felt, what you thought.

So that was a very, very important aspect of the synod. Again, there was also the liberty with which we shared. We weren’t too sure how it would be, this atmosphere of bringing in the laity and non-bishops. That was another thing which made us a little anxious. But after the first week we enjoyed their presence and saw the wealth that came out of their presence. I think it was good. All the other canonical theological arguments notwithstanding, as a gathering of the Church, it was good.

Did you think there was enough variety of opinions, from all sides of the Church, because there was a great emphasis on it being a very inclusive event?

You find all kinds of opinions [in the final report]. I think for me it was a very interesting moment for our Church that we could put all these things on the table, yet have these heated arguments and go out and have coffee and come back and continue. This conversation in the spirit method really calmed down tempers and give us time to know that we’re not doing our work, we’re doing God’s work.

It gave you time to reflect, but did you think that the conversation in the Spirit also, in some way, constrained the ability to really get into subjects, because you’d have to stop speaking after three minutes?

No. Some actually described the conversation in the spirit as “a hijack of their arguments,” but I think that those moments gave us time to realize that it was not your argument. You can have your points, but in these arguments, you are talking about the Church [… ] That gave us time to always go back to the fact that it’s not about who wins or who loses. It’s all about the Church getting better.

I think it was a good synod. There are many canonical questions, which still remain hanging, which we have to continue researching and studying within this one year.

Do you mean canonical questions relating to the legitimacy of the synod?

Yes, the legitimacy of the synod, whether it’s still the Synod of Bishops if you bring in the laity and give them the power to vote. What percentage of laity can you allow into the synod of bishops? Those are some of the canonical questions that are still floating in the air.

The Vatican didn’t give a breakdown of who voted for what, so we couldn’t see how much bishops or laity voted for something. Do you think that’s a problem going forward as, at the moment, a cardinal’s or archbishop’s vote is no different to a layman’s who might hold views contrary to Church teaching?

That is something also that needs to be discussed, because some of the participants expressed the desire, especially the bishops, that we should know how the laity think, and how the bishops think.

As a member of the ordinary council, are you going to try to bring that up?

Oh, sure, I’ll try to propose it, because I think it’s for the good of the Church to be able to know this is a Synod of Bishops. It is not a general assembly or just a synod assembly.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the general relator of the synod, said there was an openness for change in the Church at the synod and that resistance to the “hot topics” such as support for homosexuality, women deacons etc. was “not so great” as people had thought. Does it perhaps concern you that there are certain issues which are being raised and that are contrary to the Catholic faith could get through the synod and become part of the Church’s magisterium?

As a synod council member, … I understood, listening to the arguments, that this synod is not about change of doctrine. This synod is about journeying together, whatever journeying together means. I think those of us who came in there as faithful, adherent to the doctrine of the Church, were more or less surprised that the arguments were not as strong as we had imagined.

We are open to many things. From Africa, we argued about polygamy not because we want polygamy legalized, but because we want accompaniment. Now, we in Africa are given the chance to set up theological commissions, to study polygamy and get pastoral directives that would adapt to that situation in Africa. This is a big opening.

The argument against that is that just by opening this to discussion, it gives the impression that the issue is up for debate, and that the Church will change its teaching down the line. What do you say to that?

Although there are some accidentals that will definitely change, the essence will not change. To start a conversation with polygamists, we had to insert the word “conversion.”

Conversion to what?

Conversion to the values of the Gospel. Whether we’re talking to ‘LGBT’ people or we’re talking to polygamists or we’re talking about ourselves, there must always be the call to conversion, conversion to the Gospel. What are the Gospel values? Entering into dialogue with all of these people is always in view of conversion. If we take that out, then we stop being evangelical. We are no longer backed by the Gospel.

Can it be a genuine call to conversion if the teaching of the Church is not restated or, as Cardinal Gerhard Müller said, divine Revelation and even Jesus Christ were set aside during the synod?

When you get 360 people together, not everybody will think the same thing from the same perspective. I think we kept going back to the point that in the center, the focus is Christ. We kept going back to that point. Some people will think we didn’t go back enough, some will think we’re Christ-ifying the document too much, but I think from my perspective, we never lost sight of the fact that we kept going back.

Some observers argued that this causes harm as it can scandalize the faithful, because they feel that if these issues are allowed to go on being discussed rather than the Church just saying No, it appears that there’s a general will to get them through.

Yes, one of the things I have to say to you is that you must realize that the Church today is under the particular papacy of Francis. Francis is not John Paul II. These are the adaptations that must be in our mind. John Paul said “Enough,” Francis says “Talk,” but the important thing is that we are teaching what the Church says and we’re moving on. The Church remains. For me, this is a consolation.

The Church cannot be led into error.

No, the Church cannot. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit.

What do you think was the African bishops’ general and most important contribution to the synod?

One of the biggest contributions that Africa brought to this synod is the idea of Small Christian Communities. If we don’t go back to Small Christian Communities, all this about broad-based consultation, getting everybody involved, is a pipe dream […] When you are looking at those Small Christian Communities, you’re looking at families and no one is left behind. That’s why Africa opted for the image of Church as a family, not a tent. I think this is something you see. At the end of this meeting, nobody talked about a tent anymore. We’re all about family. This is one of the big things that Africa brought on board, that in Church is the family of God.

Another contribution that Africa brought up within this synod was our view on the teaching of the Church, on the human person, and human sexuality. In Africa, we understand marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and anything short of that is witchcraft. This is something we said very strongly. We cannot be talking about sensitivities and orientations within the Church setting when this is what the Gospel says. This is what the teaching of the Church has said all along and this is what various cultures believe.

Did you feel you were listened to and your views taken on board?

Oh, yes. We were taken on board very seriously — very, very seriously. I’m very, very happy, especially with this aspect of the Church’s teaching on the human person and sexuality. It was a big concern for Africa. The fact that we moderated it and took out certain words that were very political, I think we are happy with that.

Also the cry of the poor was very strong at this synod. Did you think that was adequately dealt with?

We spoke about material poverty and then we didn’t focus as much, although we spoke about it, [about] spiritual poverty, because spiritual poverty is what is leading us a lot into material poverty.

One other big issue that was mentioned before the synod was this change of Church governance into an inverted pyramid. The final document talks about a profound spiritual conversion being needed as the foundation for any effective structural change, as though there’s a dominant wish to upend the Church’s governance and invert the hierarchy. What is your view on this?

If you invert the hierarchy, the Church is no longer Catholic. There is no time the bishops will cease from being successors of the apostles. There’s no time that the Pope will cease from being the successor of St. Peter […] People are looking at it from the purely human point of view. I think most of those who are bringing these arguments are taking a more human than spiritual or even physiological [standpoint].

Are you concerned that that way of thinking could become predominant, especially as the synod is considering the views of the laity who also get a vote?

I’m not really worried because those who argue this way are a tiny minority, but they speak very loudly. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of the issue and you start talking with people, they are not interested. They just want to go to heaven. From the time of the apostle, you’ve always had heretics trying to infiltrate, so it’s normal. We have a saying in French: Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe — “The dogs are barking; the caravan is moving on.” Nobody is bothered about those things. Christians understand their doctrine, the teaching of the Church, and they’re going on.

And the noise is ignored.

It’s ignored. I think we should look at the broader picture. We will get worried if the caravan stops. As long as the caravan does not stop, then the dogs bark.

Culled from National Catholic Register