Fr. Tatah Humphrey should most certainly be commended for his assiduous commitment to African scholarship. It is no small feat to have 25 books and counting under one’s belt. That is a number most scholars would envy. Though I am yet to get a copy of Studying the Faith of Our Ancestors: A New Approach to African Traditional Religion (it is not yet available on AMAZON), there are many statements that Fr. Tatah made in his August 12 Crux interview with Ngala Killian that faithful Catholic theologians would agree with. For example: Fr. Tatah asserts the historicity of the Incarnation of Jesus as the God-Man; he asserts the unicity and salvific universality of the Christ; he likewise asserts the mediatory place of the Church in the economy of the Christ-event. I very much appreciate the fact that Fr. Tatah highlights the necessity for inculturation rightly understood and implemented, which is mightily different from adaptation. Another strength of his interview is the case that he makes about Christianity not being a European religious expression. That Fr. Tatah decries what Engelbert Mveng famously characterized as Africa’s anthropological deficiency is also worth commending, for the African has much to offer global Catholicism, especially given the waning of Christian faith in large sectors of the Western world today.

In fact, I think the strongest part of Fr.Tatah’s interview could very well be these lines: “That God, historically, came into human history in the person of Jesus the Christ. We cannot deny that. That’s a historical fact. That Christ, at Caesarea Philippi, established the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. That you can’t deny. That’s historical (…).”  And in another paragraph, Fr.Tatah says, “Christ is God and that is the only direction we lead people to. There can be nothing else, no salvation except through God and Christ is God made man.” These lines capture the center of Christology, Ecclesiology, and Missiology, and one could build a profound reflection on Christian discipleship and evangelization on these positions for today’s African Church.

The above being said, it is equally the case that a close reading of Fr.Tatah’sCrux interview leaves one with a serious Christological problem, especially in terms of the logicality and inner coherence of his religious claims of the enduring value of (African Traditional Religion) ATR, vis-à-vis the figure of Jesus of Nazareth as the God-Man. It is one thing to say that Godentered history in the God-Man, Jesus of Nazareth, as Chalcedon taught. However, it is entirely another to, for all intents and purposes, to relativize the wholly otherness of the Christ-event so much so that it becomes a part of the evolutionary process of the history of religion, perhaps in the sense of Comte or Hegel.

To me, the central nexus of the difficulty a dogmatic theologian must have with Fr. Tatah appears to be this: what is the salvific significance of natural revelation as opposed to, or different from, supernatural revelation? In effect, there appears a blurring or obscuring of lines in terms of the good, the beautiful, and the true that we find in ATR, on the one hand, and the wholly otherness of the Christ-event, on the other hand. Fr. Tatah himself appears to indicate this dialectic when he says in his interview: “So, if you are looking for religion as it has evolved, it has evolved from our own reasoning of how God is to God himself coming into our midst and from there everything goes on.” Now, is there a distinction between religion evolving from our own reasoning and religion as God himself coming into our midst? I believe Fr. Tatah would say, certainly, there is a distinction between the former and the latter. But is this distinction just an evolutionary process as Fr.Tatah appears to characterize it, or is this distinction really the beef of the matter? Along this line of reasoning, one can readily see other problems that the claims in Fr. Tatah’s interview leaves unresolved:

• Is Biblical Christian monotheism African, or (or even European)?

• Is there an ontological and an existential difference between the first article of the Nicene Creed, I Believe in One God, and the concept of the Supreme Deity or Being that we find in ATR?

• How does Fr.Tatah understand the Trinitarian character of Christian monotheism if, as he claims, ATR already had the understanding of Christian monotheism?

• Is the Supreme Being of ATR identifiable with the God, the Father of Jesus Christ, or is this reality of the Supreme Being in ATR an opening that should lead us to a deeper understanding of this God whom Jesus of Nazareth alone called Father?

• How does Fr.Tatah understand the metaphor of the seed and tree that he employs to explain that Christianity is the tree that has blossomed from the seed of ATR,  – a position any serious dogmatic theologian would find utterly problematic, – in the light of say, St. John Henry Newman’s teaching on the organic development of doctrine? If the Immanent Trinity was not present in the monotheism of ATR, would the Economic Trinity be present?

• In the TatahianWeltanschauung of ATR, is Christianity a qualitative or quantitative leap?

• Do the cultic rites/rituals of the stones, rivers, and mountains that Fr.Tatah alludes to in his interview have a salvific value from the Christian perspective? If they don’t, how does Fr.Tatah square these with this position that ATR is the seed for tree that is Christianity? And if they do, why burden Africans with Christianity?

• In addition, is there a difference between “seeds of the Gospel,” as used in inculturation theology in the understanding of the Second Vatican Council, and ATR as the “seed of Christianity” as espoused by Fr.Tatah?

• What are the limits to appropriating Rahner’s problematic concept of “anonymous Christianity” and applying that to ATR as Fr.Tatah does in his work? In effect,  does this appropriation of Rahner serve the urgent task of evangelization in the vast continent of Africa today?

In all, Fr.Tatah leaves us with an inner tension between fidelity to the liberating truths of Christianity, on the one hand, and a somewhat nostalgic attachment to ATR, on the other hand. While such an attachment is understandable, particularly when viewed from the perspective of a world that in many ways has lost its religious roots, an embellished proclamation of ATR does not only leave us in an anachronistic no-man’s land, but even more, it could unintentionally impede the urgency and necessity of living out the Great Commission of Mathew 28, which is more urgent today than when Jesus first gave it, especially as we prepare for the second millennium of the Great Commission of Mathew coming up in 2033. I happened to have taught a course Christianity in Africa at Boston College for some years now. Often times students would ask me to account for the reasons for the growth of Christianity in Africa. Amongst others, I would point to the liberating experience that the Christian message brings to many an African. Achebe seems to think likewise in the figure of Nwoye in Things Fall Apart. I do not see this liberating impact of Christianity in Fr.Tatah’s presentation of the relationship between ATR and Christianity.

In the final analysis, faith begins, as Ratzinger taught, when we move, like Abraham, from the clan to the unknown territory directed by God (Genesis 12). Faith begins when we go out of the city to the hill of Calvary with the Crucified One. For the Christian, Christ called himself truth, not culture (Tertullian). This is not to downplay our culture, but a gentle reminder that anthropology is not theology, and faith is not sociology, important as these are to the human reality. Christianity has a name and a face, Jesus of Nazareth. Everything else is secondary, even ATR.

By Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

During Sunday’s Angelus, the Holy Father Pope Francis prayed for dialogue and peace in Cameroon.

In his greetings following the recitation of Sunday’s Angelus, Pope Francis revealed that tomorrow on the eve of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a peace pilgrimage will take place in Bafoussam, Cameroon, a nation still suffering from violence and war.

“Let us join in prayer with our brothers and sisters in Cameroon so that, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God may sustain the hope of the people who have been suffering for years and open ways of dialogue to reach harmony and peace” the Holy Father said.

At the same time, the Pope asked everyone to continue to pray for the battered nation of Ukraine, suffering greatly due to the war.

Source: Vatican News

Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala Archdiocese in Cameroon has called on the government to commit to resolving the protracted Anglophone crisis in the Central African nation.

Speaking to journalists Tuesday, July 25, Archbishop Kleda lamented that innocent people are being killed as a result of the crisis.

“The crisis in the English Speaking regions of Cameroon has not yet been resolved,” the Cameroonian Catholic Archbishop said.

He added, “The Cameroon government should profoundly reflect on this crisis and commit to resolving it.”

“It is the duty of the government to ensure citizens live in peace everywhere for we have a country where we can all live in peace,” the Archbishop of Douala said.

Cameroon’s English-speaking regions plunged into conflict in 2016 after a protest by lawyers and teachers turned violent. An armed movement of separatists claiming independence for the so-called republic of Ambazonia emerged following the government’s crackdown on protesters.

School boycotts have become common in these areas, as have enforced moratoriums on public life known as “ghost towns”.

In his July 25 address to journalists, Archbishop Kleda said, “The current crisis needs a serious analysis in order to get lasting solutions.”

“If what is needed is dialogue, then let it be convened so that parties can listen to each other, come to an understanding on the way forward,” the 64-year-old Cameroonian Archbishop said.

He added, “This problem is very serious and all Cameroonians know what the people are demanding.”

The Local Ordinary of Douala Archdiocese said, “Cameroonians must understand the need to resolve this crisis definitely.”

“We cannot say everything is alright because people at times go about their activities. Innocent people are being killed every day. We have so many internally displaced persons that we are assisting here in Douala,” he lamented.

Archbishop Kleda said, “If there was peace many of them would have returned home.”

Source: acia

Archbishop Andrew Fuanya Nkea of Bamenda Archdiocese in Cameroon has described the Sunday, July 16 murder of civilians in his Metropolitan See as a “very painful moment”.

On July 16, unidentified gunmen reportedly killed 10 people and injured another two at Nacho junction in the city of Bamenda in Cameroon’s troubled Northwestern region, Reuters reported.

The assailants arrived in two unmarked vehicles and immediately ordered people to lie down with accusations of failing to back local separatists, and opened fire as some obeyed while others ran.

Speaking to journalists Monday, July 17 after a visit to the scene of the incident, Archbishop Nkea decried the loss of life in the Cameroonian Archdiocese and called for the respect of human life.

“Within this past week, we lost six children in this neighborhood and now again we have lost 10 people within this same neighborhood,” the Cameroonian Catholic Archbishop said.

He added, “That is why I came out of my house to come here to this place where it happened a couple of hours ago so that we pay our last respect to the people who died here.”

“It is a very painful moment for all of us and when the moment is hard and hot like this, we come out to bring consolation to the people, we come out to pray for the dead and to show that good will always triumph over evil,” Archbishop Nkea said.

The Archbishop of Bamenda who doubles as the President of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) further said, “Evil can never defeat good no matter how long it takes.”

The Catholic Archbishop who previously served as Apostolic Administrator of Mamfe Diocese in Cameroon’s Southwestern region continued, “Human life is sacred and we call on everyone, whoever they are, to respect human life.”

“Life is given to us by God; let us leave God alone to be able to take it back. That is why I came to encourage the people of this neighborhood and extend to them my solidarity. We are together with them in prayers and in spirit,” he said.

A manhunt has been launched for the “terrorists” behind the massacre, North West region governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, has been quoted as saying in the Reuters report.

“Investigations are on, and we will issue a statement on this later today,” the Cameroonian Governor added.

Cameroon’s English-speaking regions plunged into conflict in 2016 after a protest by lawyers and teachers turned violent. An armed movement of separatists claiming independence for the so-called republic of Ambazonia emerged following the government’s crackdown on protesters.

School boycotts have become common in these areas, as have enforced moratoriums on public life known as “ghost towns”.

In his July 17 address to journalists, Archbishop Nkea reiterated the need for peace, saying, “I have always said that love is better than hatred. I have always said that life is better than death. I have always said that living and loving one another is better than killing one another.”

“It is not right to take the lives of other people. It could have been any of us and there are people who were sitting here who were taken by bullets,” the 57-year-old Catholic Archbishop who started his Episcopal Ministry in August 2013 as the Coadjutor Bishop of Mamfe Diocese said.

He added, “I think it is high time that all this should stop. We want this violence to stop. Let people be able to go on with their normal lives again.”

“We condemn hate speech. We want our people to be able to live their normal lives. And that is why we say it is enough. Let this come to an end. We should stop killing one another,” the Cameroonian Archbishop emphasized.

Source: aciafrica

In the first part of our reflection on the topic of what difference Jesus makes that we published this past Easter, we ended on the position that the Temptations constitute, at their innermost core, a theological debate between Satan and Jesus. The hectic nature of my schedule did not allow for the completion of this reflection until now. I apologize to my readers for this belatedness. Now, let us return to where we break off this past Easter on this topic, namely, the challenge for Jesus to prove his identity as the Son of God. It is likewise important to keep the overarching question in view, that is, Jesus’ identity in the light  of the difference that Jesus makes in today’s world. In effect, if Jesus is who he claims to be, if Jesus is authentic – if you are the Son of God – as Satan threw at him, then there must be a difference in the world with the coming of Jesus. Within the context of the Temptations, Jesus does not take the bait put forth by Satan. He refuses to turn stones into bread, or to fall from the lofty heights of the Temple pinnacle. The Cardinal Inquisitor has it right in The Grand Inquisitor when he laments before Jesus: You refused the offer of the Mighty Spirit because you wanted men and women to follow you out of freedom! In other words, succumbing to the Temptations would have been an easier and faster part for Jesus to accomplish his mission. But the fastest and easiest do not always translate into the truly enduring, beautiful and good.

To Ratzinger, the Temptations are not only Christological, that is, pertaining only to the person of Christ. They likewise have an inherent Ecclesiological character, in that the Church down the ages has often faced the challenge to prove itself, to prove its credibility. If you are the Church of Christ, then demonstrate it in a more convincing manner. If you are the Church of Christ, then why is there so much sin and evil in your members? Why couldn’t Christ make you as perfect as he Jesus is? And this temptation to prove one’s identity and authenticity can be very overwhelming even for the priest of today, with all the media hype. In my own life as a Christian and as a priest, I am learning, with every passing day, the wisdom in Jesus’ refusal to take the bait. I am learning that the most meaningful response to the challenge to prove one’s identity and authenticity is to create time for more prayer before God, the all-knowing One. In prayer, the priest and the Christian feels the Lord’s closeness and support, and if my own limited experience in the spiritual life is anything to go by, there is really no substitute for prayer in the life of a priest and a Christian.

Fr Maurice with Gerhard Cardinal Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Custodian of Ratzinger’s Theological Legacy (Meeting at Vatican City)

When one enters into an Ignatian contemplation of the Temptations of Jesus, one can discern, overtime, that the issue of the Temptations boils down to the question about the fulfillment of the human heart. What really satisfies the human heart? Wealth (bread), Power (Temple Pinnacle/the cities of the world)? I believe that to understand Jesus’ resistance to the seductive offers of Satan provides the definitive response to the central question of the difference that Jesus makes in our lives today. And a proper understanding of this question possesses a historical pedigree to it, namely, engaging Jesus’ identity and uniqueness from the living faith of Israel, specifically with the figure and mission of Moses.

With Moses at the helm, Israel left Egypt for the promised land. What shaped this journey in large measure was the sense of hope, for a promised land that would meet the aspirations and yearnings of Israel. The particular issues and demands met by manna and other nutritional and safety needs embodied the need for hope in an otherwise hopeless context. The question of difference Jesus makes appears in an antecedent format at this point: What difference does the God of Israel make, to the people of Israel? In a sense, the yearnings of Israel’s heart is captured in the request Moses makes to Yahweh: Show me your face. Some translations render  it as show me your glory (Exodus 33:18). God strikes a compromise with Moses that from the angle of a retrospective reading, lays the foundation for the difference that the coming of Christ makes in history. Moses will still have the privilege and joy of encountering, somewhat, the beatific vision while still on this side of human existence, that is, the Back of God, but no more, for the human being cannot see the face of God and live (Exodus 33:20). In the event of Moses, the light of faith (lumen fidei) and the light of glory (lumen gloriae) converge, a rarity, because the light of faith is meant to accompany us in this earthly life, while the light of glory is what enables us to see God in the next life. As I think further about this mysterious text of Exodus 33, this interpretation already much present especially in Eastern Theology occurs to me: the light of faith could correspond to the Back of God, and the light of glory, the Face of God, to the extent that only in followership/discipleship captured in the image of the back, would one eventually arrive at the longing that moves or drives the human heart, captured in the image of the face. From this incident of Moses, there emerged, in the consciousness of Israel’s faith and later on taken up in Christian mysticism, the theology of the Face of God as the fulfilment of the greatest longing of the human heart, as we see in the lives of the saints and Doctors of the Church.

Let’s remain a little bit more with the figure of Moses and the images of the Back and Face of God. In his The Life of Moses, St. Gregory of Nyssa offers a truly moving Christological  reading of this mystical event as narrated in the Book of Deuteronomy. Gregory asks:

What is his back which God promised to Moses when he asked to see him face-to-face? (…) But when the Lord who spoke to Moses came to fulfill his own law, he likewise gave a clear explanation to his disciples, laying bare the meaning of what had previously been said in a figure when he said, ‘if anyone wants to be a follower of mine.’ And to the one asking about eternal life he proposed the same thing, for he said, ‘Come, follow me’ (18:22). Now, he who follows sees the back. So, Moses, who eagerly seeks to behold God, is now taught how he can behold him: to follow God where ever he might lead is to behold God. His passing by signifies his guiding the one who follows, for someone who does not know the way cannot complete his journey safely in any other way than by following behind his guide. HE who leads, then, by his guidance shows the way to the one following. He who follows will not turn aside from the right way if he always keeps the back of his leader in view. (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 106 & 110.

Some spiritual insights from this engagement between Moses and God:

Firstly, as Aquinas beautifully expresses it – and as many Christians likewise get a glimpse of it particularly during moments of prayer, – only God can satisfy the human heart – Nil Nisi Te Domine. Augustine had said it best centuries before Aquinas: You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until it rest in Thee.

Secondly, notwithstanding all the material blessings that come our way in this life, there remains that longing that nothing corporeal is capable of filling. There is a void, what the French philosopher Maurice Blondel trenchantly characterizes as the wedge between the willed will and the willing will, in his philosophy of action.

Thirdly, because this quest for God is in the DNA of the human being, we are somewhat impatient for the beatific vision, for what Aquinas calls the light of glory. Even in this life, which is guided by the light of faith, we want to have the fullness that the light of glory brings with it. And this is quite understandable, for who wants to live with half measures?

But even more, we cannot deny that our brokenness and sinfulness, what Blaise Pascal calls our wretchedness, is likewise a motivation for our desire for the fullness that comes with the light of glory, the Face of God. I love Dante’s DivineComedy precisely because sin is not presented in a despairing form, but as a starting point for the journey to the Face of God, as the soul moves from the Inferno through the Purgatorio and finally, Paradiso. Too often, Christians get chained in the melancholy of their sinful past and present, forgetting to realize that our sins, my own sins as Maurice, is really the raw material that God uses to place me on the journey towards Him.

And this is the context in which Jesus Christ enters the scene, making all the difference, as particularly captured in the dual dynamisms of Deuteronomy 18 and Matthew 17. (To be continued…)

By Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

A leading Cameroonian priest has warned that the country is “dangerously dancing toward self-destruction,” blasting a series of corruption scandals and acts of violence that have marred the west African nation.

“These are very uncomfortable atrocities that have happened in our midst, and which sometimes, we rather tacitly” accept them through silence, said Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy, Director of Communications at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Cameroon.

In one of his weekly programs, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” broadcast this week, Mbuy catalogued several incidents that have rocked Cameroon of late.

He began with the murder of journalist Martinez Zogo, who was kidnapped January 17, and whose mutilated body was found near the capital Yaoundé five days later. Zogo was a constant voice of criticism against government corruption.

Mbuy also discussed scandals surrounding the construction of a Yaoundé-Douala motorway. The first 60 kilometers of the highway have now cost in excess of $1 billion, with much of that amount believed to have been stolen by corrupt officials.

COVID-19 funds that were also allegedly stolen, Mbuy mentioned. Several government officials, including the Prime Minister Joseph Ngute, have been questioned about the theft of about $300 million allocated for the fight against COVID, but so far, no one has been arrested in connection with the investigation.

The same goes with the theft of funds allocated for the construction of sports stadiums in the country. Recently, another corruption scandal was unraveled at the country’s finance ministry in which a cluster of private individuals and government entities had benefited from ‘miscellaneous expenses’ contained in line items in the state budget to the tune of about $9 billion between 2010 and 2021.

Mbuy lauded the oldest Member of Cameroon’s National Assembly, Koa Mfegue Laurentine Mbede, who recently warned that “all this must stop, or our beautiful and dear fatherland will be transformed into a land of scandals.”

“Perhaps the honorable lady was truly referring to the shock and feelings of betrayal suffered by those who are surprised and disgusted to learn of the complicity of their leaders in wrong-doing,” the priest said.

A nation of roughly 30 million, Cameroon is roughly half Christian, with Catholics making up the largest single religious group in the country.

Mbuy said it’s critical for Cameroonians to speak out in the face of scandal and corruption, because “One who keeps quiet instead of unveiling evil that is going on consents to such evil.”

He said although God fashioned man in his image, he also respects man’s freedom to freely choose between good and evil, and this could partly explain the preponderance of scandals in society today.

“Each and every baptized Christian is called upon to evangelize and bring the good news to the poor, the lame, and the blind, to bring liberty to captives and to set the down-trodden free,” Mbuy said.

“The Church, as a teacher, is called to investigate, to find out, to teach and to defend the truth. The Church can never at any time stand on what is evil.”

Mbuy said the need to build a moral society void of scandals arises out of the theological definition of scandal as “moral outrage.”

In other words, “a word or an action which leads to the spiritual ruin of another person…The problem with scandal is not with the person committing even the scandal, it’s already bad enough that he commits. The problem with scandal is that it induces others to sin. It is because of others that scandals become worrisome,” Mbuy said.

He called on Church leaders to be the moral compass of society, and notwithstanding their human weaknesses, “there is a certain amount of discretion that each church leader must possess and which society has a right to expect from each of them. The same applies to those in public service, called to be servants of the people in their administration and political choices.”

He said a few moral principles are necessary to handle the many scandals in Cameroonian society today.

“First, public scandals must be handled and resolved publicly, while private scandals are to be handled privately. Second, there is absolute necessity to make amends, repair or restitution in cases of public scandals. Third, public scandals deserve sanctions to act as deterrents so that others may not follow the bad example. Since a scandal is a moral poisoning of the society, each deserves to be handled with absolute cold headedness and skill, ensuring that the impression is not given that we condone evil. Evil is to be fought at all costs and with the utmost ferociousness.”

Mbuy expressed regret that society has been besieged by “such a nauseating secularism and Marxist materialism that we tend to act with shocking levity of mind over issues which would otherwise frighten anyone with a disciplined mind.”

“If our society is dangerously dancing towards self-destruction, part of the central reason lies in our insensitivity towards what is wrong and inadmissible,” he said.

“For people who still think about the future and those coming after, there is every reason to continue to stand on the side of good against evil, upholding integrity, rather than give in to licentiousness, but apparently, the beautiful ones are not yet born, or the gods must be crazy,” he said.

Culled from Crux

May 13, 2023, Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, was truly a historic day in the life of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, USA, as His Eminence, Sean Patrick Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap., ordained the first Cameroonian in the person of the Rev. John Tanyi, as transitional deacon for the Archdiocese of Boston. In his homily at the Holy Cathedral of Boston that was filled to capacity especially by the Cameroonian crowd from all over Massachusetts and beyond that came to witness one of their own become a Catholic clergyman, Cardinal Sean paid glowing tribute to the Church in Africa as the most vibrant and growing part of the global Church. Rev. Tanyi’s mother, Mama Angela Bikele Tanyi, had travelled from Tiko, Cameroon, to be present for this history-making event. Other family members likewise travelled from Cameroon, Europe, Canada and other parts of the US, to be present.

Rev. John Tanyi, the Cardinal said, is an embodiment of the vibrant presence of African Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston. The congregation burst into a sustained applause when the Cardinal reference the vibrant Church in Africa. It was a very moving scene when Rev. Tanyi knelt before Cardinal O’Malley and placing his hands in the hands of the Cardinal, promised obedience to him and his successors. This was preceded by Rev. Tanyi lying prostrate on the Cathedral floor, during which the saints of God, including St. John Paul II and the Uganda Martyrs – both dear to Rev. Tanyi, were invoked to come to the aid of Rev. Tanyi and the others being ordained. Another very moving sight for the Cameroonians present was witnessing Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai vesting Rev. John Tanyi in the vestments of the deacon.

The ordination ceremony was followed by a Thanksgiving Mass and Reception that same Saturday evening at the Ste Anne Parish, Salem MA. Rev. John Tanyi delivered his First Homily as a Deacon at the Mass, in which he paid tribute to his family as his first house of formation. His has been a long road to the priesthood. In Rev. Tanyi’s own words:

“I was born into a large family in the small coastal town of Tiko in Anglophone Cameroon, Central Africa. I was raised in a traditional Catholic family, as my parents were devout Catholics. Papa was a headmaster in Catholic schools for close to fifty years. Mama was a laboratory technician. Attending Mass daily was a given. Mama woke us up at 5am for morning devotion. We would then walk forty-five minutes, praying the rosary, in the wee hours of the morning for Mass. We prayed together before going to bed and mama never got tired of her mantra, “A family that prays together stays together.”

 My family was my first seminary since the values and virtues I uphold today originated from that domestic Church. My early attraction to the priesthood stemmed from seeing priests in white and black cassocks in the parish and at school. Mama said at the age of seven, I said to her “One day you will call me Rev. John Tanyi.” Even though we weren’t rich, my parents made tremendous sacrifices to send me to St. Joseph’s College Sasse, one of the elite schools in Anglophone Cameroon, established by the Mill Hill Missionary Society in 1939.

In 2002, I joined the Mill Hill Missionary Society for formation to the missionary priesthood. After a year of basic formation in Cameroon, I was sent to Uganda for philosophical studies in 2003. In 2006, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi. After first cycle formation, I was sent to the coastal region of Kenya for a two-year Missionary Experience Program (MEP). I left the Mill Hill Missionary Society upon completion of the MEP in 2008. After years of studies, I taught politics, international relations, and peace studies at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and Mount Kenya University, Nairobi (2013-2018). The academic interactions I had with students are priceless. For my sabbatical in 2018, I enrolled for a Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry in Boston College, USA. I graduated with an MA in Theology and Ministry in 2020.

For the last fifteen years, I have been writing and talking about the faith of the Catholic Church. I thought I would serve God through my writings and teaching. But God works in mysterious and strange ways. Since childhood, my desire of becoming a priest has never been quenched. In February 2020, I attended a vocation retreat at Pope Saint John XXIII Seminary. I was touched by Cardinal Seán O’Malley’s perceptive remark that Jesus Christ called second career men for apostles. It was at that point that I decided to return to the seminary. I was admitted into the seminary in 2020 for the Archdiocese of Boston. It wasn’t an entirely easy decision considering the fruitful time I had as a university lecturer.

It has been a wonderful time of formation at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary. The faculty, fellow seminarians, and people of God have made my desire for the priesthood grow even more. I am about to be ordained to the Transitional Diaconate for the Archdiocese of Boston. I remember with gratitude some great missionaries from the United States who evangelized us in Africa; Fr Jim Kelly, C.S.C., Russell McDougall, C.S.C., Fr. Peter Major, MHM, and Fr. Robert White, SJ. The tide has seemingly turned, as the evangelizers are now becoming the evangelized. The sons and daughters from mission territories like Cameroon are now taking the Gospel to established Christian lands. It will be a great honor for me to serve as a priest of the historic See of Boston. 

Pope Saint John Paul the Great has been one of the great influences in my discernment to the priesthood. He was a priest par excellence and my study and writing of him has motivated me to follow in his footsteps to the Lord’s altar. More personally, Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai played a major role in my return to the seminary. His love of Christ and the Church has made a big impact on me. I also cannot overemphasize the impact of the great Irish missionary to Africa, Fr. Anthony Murphy, MHM, on my vocation life. Fr. Murphy served the Church in Africa for over forty years. He was the pastor of my former home parish in Cameroon. On the day I reported to the seminary in Boston in 2020, Fr. Murphy described my vocation story, “John, this is very good news indeed, and I’m delighted for you. You have been circling around your vocation for a long time. You remind me of Francis Thompson’s famous poem, ‘The Hound of Heaven’. Jesus is the ‘hound’: patiently following his chosen one till the latter finally surrenders.  Please God all will go well for you now.” I am just about to surrender, in a couple of days, when I will prostrate myself on God’s altar.”

The Cameroon Community of Boston and Ste Anne Parish under the leadership of Dr. Hilary Aroke and Dr. Judith Fokum organized a grand reception following the Thanksgiving Mass at Ste Anne Parish. The Sasse Old Boys spiced the reception, feeling very proud that a SOBAN has cut the ribbon as the First Cameroonian to become a cleric for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. The CWA Mamas lived up to their reputation of delivering a great Cameroon cuisine for all present. God willing, and as we continue to pray, next year, Rev. John Tanyi will become a priest for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. His ordination motto is taken from the words of St. John Paul II: “When a man says YES to the Lord, his YES is forever”. Let is keep Rev. Tanyi in our prayers, that he will continue to say YES to the Lord like his great mentor, St John Paul the Great.

Bertrand Etukeni Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord US Bureau Chief

48th Plenary Assembly: 16-22 April 2023

Archbishops and Bishops of Cameroon,

The Secretary General NECC,

Reverend Fathers and Lay collaborators at NECC,

Dear Journalists, men and women of the Media,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. “The Lord is Risen, Alleluia – Yes, He is truly Risen Alleluia1”.  It is with this Easter refrain that I would like to welcome all the Archbishops and Bishops of Cameroon and their collaborators who have gathered here in the National Episcopal Center, for the 48th Plenary Session of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon. I would equally like to welcome each one of you here present, as well as greet all Civil, Military, Traditional, Political and Religious authorities wherever they are at the moment – a very Happy Easter to you all. The first words of the Risen Lord to his Apostles were: “Peace be with you”. This greeting is very relevant for all of us in present-day Cameroon. So, as we begin this Plenary Assembly of the Bishops, I would like to greet the whole of Cameroon with the same  words of the Risen Christ: “Peace be with you”.

2. After forty days of fasting and abstinence, we celebrated in our various dioceses one of the most important events in our religious and spiritual life: the Solemnity of Easter, a symbol of how suffering leads to rebirth. The Resurrection of Christ is of particular interest to us because at Easter, the movement from death to life, engages each of us in a very personal manner. We who are gathered here on this day after the Divine Mercy Sunday, know for certain that our destiny and our life, would have had no meaning without the Resurrection of Christ. This is both crucial and central to our history and our journey towards God. 

3.Like the Apostles on the day after Easter, we have to proclaim Christ victorious over death, to our society marked by various sufferings – socio-political crises, agricultural difficulties, the lack of farm to market roads, repeated killings, the Covid-19 pandemic, high cost of living and other social injustices, to name just a few. In this kind of atmosphere, we must continue to bear witness to our faith in a world that seems to have lost its bearings and which now gives way to all kinds of abuses.

Albeit, our ongoing efforts for the return of peace in our country have not been in vain, because, despite the continuous threats from Boko Haram in the North and the prevailing insecurity in the North West and South West Regions, we do not give up, instead we ask Christ the Risen One to shower us with His peace. Thanks be to God, relative calm is returning to the North West and South West Regions, some businesses are reopening and many children are going back to school. This is a great sign of hope, but the situation of insecurity still remains very preoccupying.

4. In the recent months, we have been very saddened by the various extra-judicial killings that have been taking place in our society, top among which was the murder of the Journalist, Martinez Zogo, in Yaoundé. The bishops of Cameroon together with the Universal Catholic Church have always called on all peoples to respect human life, which is a gift from God from the moment of conception to its natural death. To kill someone is a sin against the 5th Commandment of the Decalogue and this commandment clearly states: “Thou shall not kill”. It is our prayer and hope that the real killers of fellow citizens will be clearly identified and brought to book according to the laws of our country. We make a very strong appeal here to all Cameroonians, to stop killing one another. We are all brothers and sisters of the same Fatherland, and children of the same God who is Father to us all.

5. During this 48th Plenary Assembly, we will, as we are accustomed to, give priority to listening to reports from the 14 commissions which represent the daily life of our Conference. This will give us the opportunity to find solutions to some important points which directly affect the future of our Conference as well as concretely revisit issues which were discussed during the seminars in Obala, Bafang, Ngaoundéré and Ebolowa.

6. We have to rewrite together, as it were, the pages which give answers to the questions we have been asking ourselves in recent years: “What kind of Episcopal Conference do we want? We are all called to work together to build this house more solidly. And to achieve this, each of us must move from “I” to “we”; from just thinking about “my diocese” to thinking about “our conference.” We are doing everything possible to improve both the living conditions of the priests who are resident here, as well as the working conditions of the commissions. We are happy to note that the  CoSMO Project  which was presented to us in Ebolowa,  has already taken off  as an outreach of our Conference. Its implementation in some target dioceses will gradually enable us to reach all the others for the good of vulnerable children in our country.

Last year, we asked the Episcopal Commission for Communication to take over from the Archdiocese of Douala, both the production and distribution of our national newspaper “L’Effort Camerounais.”  All of us are certainly glad to see the current 16-page Newspaper in colour and in its 5th publication already. While we render sincere thanks to the Archdiocese of Douala which kept the flame of this historic Newspaper burning, we encourage our Communication Commission to keep up the good work they have begun and to ensure that the paper regains its original impact and even more. 

7. After one year of our mandate in office as President of the National Episcopal Conference, we are still very committed to the construction and transformation of Marienberg in the Diocese of Edea, into a National Pilgrimage Centre. Our people need to pray; our country needs prayers and we have to look up to the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the Comforter of the Afflicted, Mirror of Justice, Help of Christians and Queen of Peace, to intercede for us.

8.May the same Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles and Special Patroness of Cameroon, intercede for us so that we can achieve our common objectives and worthily announce the Good News of the  Risen Lord to all creation. It is with this urgent invocation then that I now declare open, the 48th Plenary Assembly of the Bishops of Cameroon.

Done in Mvolye, Yaoundé, this Tuesday 18 April 2023

+Andrew NKEA,

Archbishop of Bamenda,

President of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon