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

Cameroon’s reconstruction plan for the troubled English-speaking regions is working despite ongoing violence, according Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda.

The plan was established on April 3, 2020, to rebuild infrastructure that have been shattered by a separatist war in the African country’s North West and South West regions.

Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions which constitute 20 percent of the country’s 27 million people has been the center of fighting to create a new country, which separatists call Ambazonia.

The crisis began in 2016, when teachers and lawyers in the two regions took to the streets to protest what they perceived as the over-bearing influence of French in British system schools and common law courts which have existed since the former British Cameroon joined with French Cameroon in 1961. (The two Cameroons had been a single German territory until the end of World War I, when it was divided by the two Allied powers.)

The government responded to the protests by firing on the demonstrations with live ammunition, leading to the separatist rebellion the next year. The separatist war has left at least 6000 people dead and over a million displaced, according to the International Crisis Group.

As of June 2019, at least 80 percent of schools in the two regions were closed, according to UNICEF, affecting over 700,000 children.

The health sector has also been hard hit. In 2020, the then-coordinator of the Presidential Plan for the Development of the two regions, Paul Tasong, told Crux that “in 2016, we had some 170 doctors in the hospitals and health centers. By 2019, that situation fell to 71 doctors, and the specialists became very rare. And we noticed that the rate of women giving birth to children at home in 2016 was slightly above 2 percent in the two regions, but unfortunately by 2019/2020, this situation degraded, and up to 9 percent of women gave birth to children at home. This is catastrophic. The same situation is reflected in the rate of vaccinations in the two regions.”

The Reconstruction Plan calls for the repair or replacement of 350 schools, 90 health centers, and 40 bridges. In addition, over 12,000 homes that have been destroyed will need to be replaced. Some 700 farmers will also have to be recapitalized and 200,000 people who lost official documents – including school certificates, national certificates and civil status documents –will have to be assisted in replacing them.

Speaking March 29 during a visit by Balungeli Confiance Ebune, the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Presidential Plan, to the St. Joseph School in Bamenda, Nkea said the plan was ‘building back better.”

“We [the Catholic Church] have benefitted in a very big way from the renovation of schools, and to ensure that children go back to school in better conditions than before,” the archbishop said.

A typical example was the St. Joseph nursery and primary school in Bamenda’s Old Town. It had been destroyed, but has now been completely reconstructed.

“The reconstruction respects the principle of building back better,” Nkea said.

He noted that it wasn’t only the Catholic Church that has benefitted for the reconstruction plan. Other Christian denominations and religions have benefitted as well, including the city’s Islamic primary school.

The archbishop emphasized that “the plan is working, and those still skeptical should understand.”

He called on all to work together to ensure that “we get back our society in a better way than it was before.”

During an evaluation meeting to assess the level of reconstruction, Ebune called on young people to “continue to join the active forces of the nation for long lasting  peace and development to be achieved.”

But experts have questioned the government’s decision to rebuild in the middle of continued fighting. On the same day the archbishop was making his remarks, the military was engaged in what critics have described as a scorched earth policy in Kumbo, one of the largest towns in Cameroon’s North West region.

A Catholic sister who requested not to be named for security purposes told Crux that “separatist fighters in Kumbo carried out deadly attacks targeting the military on March 29. The fighters detonated an explosive device that hit an armored car, and it was followed by a rocket-propelled grenade that they used on the military unit. The military retaliated by burning homes and property.”

Professor Verkijika Fanso of the University of Yaoundé told Crux that it was practically impossible to effectively carry out reconstruction while the fighting seems to be intensifying.

“Let them first stop the war,” he said. “Just [on March 29], several homes were burnt in Kumbo. How do you reconstruct while destroying at the same time?”

Source: Crux

Fr. Olivier Ntsa Ebode, a Catholic priest in the Lékié region of Cameroon, has been found dead.

According to local press reports, he was murdered in the night between the 28th February and the 1st March, after being lured out of his house by men claiming that a relative of theirs was sick and wanted to see him.

Cameroonian news website 237online said that Fr Ebode was a “respected figure” in the community, known for his commitment to peace and social justice.

Instability is on the rise in Cameroon, parts of which are suffering from conflict between government forces and separatists. Around 800,000 people are estimated to have been displaced, and at least 6,000 killed.

Source: Vatican News

The exploitation of Africa has remained a major talking point across the continent, especially after Pope Francis roundly condemned what he called “economic colonialism” in Africa.

On his long-awaited trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, the pope repeatedly decried the transformation of ill treatment from political domination to economic victimization.

“Political exploitation (of the Congo and more generally of Africa) gave way to an economic colonialism that was equally enslaving,” Pope Francis told an audience of Congolese politicians and other dignitaries. “As a result,” he continued, “this country, massively plundered, has not benefited adequately from its immense resources.”

“It is a tragedy that these lands, and more generally the whole African continent, continue to endure various forms of exploitation,” Francis said. “The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,” he said—a reference to what has become known as Congo’s blood diamonds.

“Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” Francis warned.

That message has continued to make headlines.

The Bishop of the Cameroonian diocese of Buea, Michael Bibi, whose diocese is located in the far south of Cameroon’s majority anglophone western regions, told Crux the Pope’s “economic colonialism” criticism was a reference to the idea of neo-colonialism.

In a conversation with Crux, Bibi described the political liberty African nations obtained from their erstwhile colonial overlords as a “flag and anthem” independence,  “while the purse strings remained in the hands of the former colonial masters.”

Bibi said he sees a marked difference in the levels of such neo-colonial arrangements between former British and French colonies. “France,” he said, “more than any other former colonial power, continues to have an iron grip in the economic and political affairs of her former colonies.”

“Many wonder whether we should even use the adjective ‘former’,” Bibi said, adding that the rate at which young Africans are dying in the Mediterranean Sea “as they risk their lives in search of greener pastures in Europe,” dramatically illustrates the relevance of the pope’s message.

Bibi said that the degree and extent of interference in the economic affairs of African states differs between the former colonial powers.

“Some of the biggest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are former colonies of Britain (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana) and these countries are also the leading democracies on the Continent,” he said. “When you compare their lot with that of the former French (and Belgian) colonies, you begin to see that France, more than any other former colonial power, continues to have an iron grip in the economic and political affairs of her former colonies.”

“Frequently,” Bibi went on to say, “these states have turned to China for help, but they are often so weak that they cannot strike a fair bargain with the Chinese Government. When loans are given, the construction must be done by a Chinese company.”

The resulting picture is one in which the major players fostering this economic colonization “are the former colonial powers in Europe, especially France, the Chinese, and the Americans as well.”

He said that France uses “a complicated network of financial economic policies and political control through the threat of regime change and their military presence to maintain the status quo,” while China exercises financial and commercial influence through loans, and “the Americans use their influence over the United Nations Security Council and the IMF and similar International Organization to have their way over many issues.”

Bibi said there is a cultural element to the involvement of Western powers, especially, in African affairs. “Another major instrument used by the players, especially the former colonial masters, is the formation of Associations ostensibly to celebrate the same culture such as the Francophonie and the Commonwealth of Nations,” he said.

Colonization, in Bibi’s view, continues to affect the continent’s economic life and impact the impact on the lives of ordinary people.

“The economic life of the African continent will not change,” Bibi said, “if foreigners continue to make all the decisions.” He went on to say: “If Africans must be the first beneficiary of the economic decisions of the continent, then they themselves must make the decisions.

Bibi said that the mass migration of young Africans to Europe and America of young Africans, “who should stay back and contribute towards the development of the continent,” is one consequence of the current state of affairs.

African leaders are not blameless, in Bibi’s view, many of whom for many years “have played this role of accomplices sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly,” but always with the same consequences.

“It is often said that the oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed,” Bibi said, adding that he believes African leaders should “look less on what they stand to lose” in standing up to those who would exploit their nations and peoples.

“Economic colonization is a dynamic phenomenon,” he said, noting the recent economic summit to which US President Joe Biden had invited them, and a similar invitation from China, and the knowledge that Russia has another similar meeting in the works.

Bibi said African leaders “must use this opportunity to seize control over their economic affairs because it may never be given to them on a platter of gold. Freedom, whether economic or political, must be seized.”

“Too often,” Bibi said, “they only seek to protect their small individual interests at the detriment of that of their countries.”

Bibi spoke also of the “will to be free” that both leaders and citizens in Africa “must have.” Leaders, he said, “must have the courage to enact policies that will benefit their people and their countries first. They must have the courage to bear the consequences of doing so.”

African citizens, for their part, “must start giving up short term solutions like struggling by all means to travel out of the country.”

“The people who will make Africa great,” Bibi said, “are not those who travel out, but those who remain to work: to open up businesses, whether farms or factories.” Bibi noted that some of those who leave think that they will come back and do that, but in the main, they gradually become “absorbed by the material abundance in the West and forget about their lofty ambitions.”

“Africans,” said the bishop of Buea, “must love their continent enough to want to stay back and contribute to its development.”

Source: Crux

Catholic leaders in Cameroon have condemned the Jan. 22 murder of a local journalist, comparing the slaying to the 2017 assassination of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla of Bafia.

The lifeless body of Martinez Zogo, 51, was found along the road to Soa, nine miles from the capital city. His remains were in an advanced state of decomposition, but preliminary investigations reportedly showed signs the journalist, who was also the director general of the urban radio station Amplitude FM, had been tortured, sodomized, and mutilated.

Zogo went missing on January 17. Reports say that he was running toward a local police station to evade a threat when he was grabbed by unidentified men and carted off in a black, unmarked car.

His death has generated national and global condemnation.

“The assassination of this journalist has shocked everyone,” said the Archbishop of Douala, Samuel Kleda, in a Jan. 26 statement.

“A journalist isn’t a thief,” Kleda said. “A journalist who is only doing his job is kidnapped. He is tortured, and he is killed and then dumped in the bush near a village, as if he were a highway robber.”

“It shouldn’t be so in a country worth its salt, in a country of laws where human rights are respected,” he said. “We strongly condemn the assassination of this journalist.”

Kleda then drew parallels between the assassination of Martinez Zogo and that Balla six years ago.

“It’s almost the same scenario. When I look at the way this journalist was killed, I think about the disappearance and the assassination of the Bishop of Bafia, Jean-Marie Benoit Balla.”

“He too, like Martinez Zogo went missing [and] was tortured before being killed,” Kleda said.

Balla disappeared on the night of May 30-31, 2017, and his corpse was discovered floating on the Nyong River on June 2. The country’s bishops indicated that he had undergone significant torture before being murdered.

“Who is killing Cameroonians?”, Kleda asked.

“They tell us that investigations will be conducted, but the results of such investigations are never made public,” he said.

Kleda said he was at a loss to understand why a journalist who ran for safety to a police station could be taken away and the security personnel wouldn’t pursue the kidnappers.

“It’s horrible! It’s inadmissible! There is a serious problem if a citizen can’t be protected by Gendarmes,” he said.

“Why did the police not seek to find the journalist after learning about his disappearance? The police and the gendarmerie could have done everything possible to find the journalist alive. They didn’t do that,” Kleda charged.

He said it was incomprehensible that nobody has been suspected or arrested in connection with the murder.

“It’s curious,” Kleda said. “There is a need to find the killers of this journalist. Those who committed this odious act must be found and punished in accordance with the law.”

He said he couldn’t understand why the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, won’t make at least a statement concerning the assassination the of the journalist, and wondered if the lives of Cameroonians really matter to him.

“When Bishop Balla was brutally assassinated, I said it was one more death too many. I have to make the same statement today after the brutal assassination of the journalist. Cameroonians aren’t protected. Cameroonians don’t feel secure. We can’t understand why the President of the Republic has remained silent in the face of such a grave issue,” Kleda said.

The National Union of Journalists of Cameroon said they were dismayed by the “heinous assassination” of their colleague.

The International Press Institute, a Vienna-based press freedom organization, has urged Cameroonian authorities to “promptly investigate the horrific murder of journalist Martinez Zogo and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”

Jean-Michel Nintcheu, a lawmaker from the opposition Social Democratic Front, said in a press statement that it was “a crime’ that should never go unpunished.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay ,has also condemned the killing and called on the government “ not to let this crime go unpunished. Journalists play an essential part in nurturing and upholding democratic governance. They deserve every necessary protection.”

The head of Reporters Without Borders’ Sub Saharan Africa Desk, Sadibou Marong, said there are “many gray areas regarding the circumstances of his brutal abduction.”

“The authorities must launch a rigorous, thorough and independent investigation to establish the full chain of responsibility and the circumstances that led to this sad event,” he said.

Cameroonian novelist Calixthe Beyala said she was “dejected, saddened. I knew he was dead as soon as it was announced he had been kidnapped. One can ask the question: Whose turn it is? Each of us can find ourselves in this situation for something that we might have said.”

Zogo’s brutal murder casts a long shadow on freedom of the press in Cameroon, and adds to the growing number of attacks on journalists in Cameroon.

In August 2019, journalist Samuel Wazizi was arrested by security forces in Buea in Cameroon’s South West region. After ten months without access to his lawyers or family, authorities finally announced he had died in detention. An investigation carried out by the military police has never been made public.

According to statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists,17 journalists have either been killed or imprisoned in Cameroon over the last ten years. The largest number of journalists being jailed took place in 2020 when 9 journalists were imprisoned.

Some local observers believe Zogo might have been murdered for investigating and reporting on corruption scandals, some involving senior figures in the country’s political life.

Culled from Crux

After more than six years of war pitting his country’s English-speaking minority against its French-speaking majority, Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda in Cameroon says the Anglophones are weary of the conflict.

“Our people are tired of the war, and our people need peace,” Nkea said January 14.

“In the northwest and southwest regions of our country, we have seen Cameroonians exhibit wickedness against fellow Cameroonians: Homes burned, schools shut down, the destruction of goods and obstruction of the circulation of people and goods…we have seen Cameroonians torture other Cameroonians,” he said.

Nkea was speaking in the St. Anne and Joachim Cathedral in Abang, Ebolowa, in Cameroon’s southern region, during a closing Mass of the 46th annual seminar of Cameroon Catholic Bishops.

In the presence of some thirty bishops from all five ecclesiastical provinces in Cameroon, as well as representatives of bishops from neighboring Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with several government Ministers, Nkea spoke at length about the conflict that has so far left at least 6,000 people dead.

Over a million others have been forced to flee from their homes, and more than 70,000 others have sought refuge in Nigeria, according to the International Crisis Group.

Conflict erupted in 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers took to the streets to protest, amid perceptions that the educational and legal systems in the two Anglophone regions were being overwhelmed by French-speakers with scant knowledge of local realities.

The government took a hard line, and what was initially a peaceful protest mutated into a political crisis. A separatist movement developed and took up arms demanding independence for Cameroon’s English speakers, and the formation of a new state to be called “Ambazonia.”

According to many analysts, the current conflict is a consequence of Cameroon’s colonial legacy. Initially colonized by Germany following the Berlin Conference of 1884, the country would be divided between Britain and France following World War 1.

France claimed four-fifths of the country in the post-war settlement, while Britain was given one-fifth which it administered as part of Nigeria. The two colonial powers would administer the two parts of the country, first as a League of Nations Mandate and then as an United Nations Trust Territory.

In 1960, the French part of Cameroon got its independence to become “La Republique du Cameroun.” The English-speaking part of Cameroon, otherwise known as the British Cameroons, got theirs in 1961, but both sides decided to reunite following a February 11, 1961, plebiscite.

The political elites of the two territories agreed on the formation of a federal State, with considerable autonomy for the English-speaking regions.

In 1972, however, then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo organized a controversial referendum, dissolving the federal structure of the state and replacing it with a united republic. In 1984, President Paul Biya removed the word “united” from the name of the state and Cameroon became known simply as “The Republic of Cameroon,” the name the French-speaking part of the country had adopted at independence.

Cameroon’s English-speakers saw this as an act of assimilation, and the 2016 uprising was therefore the culmination of decades of pent-up frustrations.

While the country’s Catholic bishops, especially from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, have long called for a revision of what they see as these historical injustices, Nkea believes that everything should be done for peace to return.

“We are inspired by what we have seen in the last six years in some regions of our country,” Nkea said.

“One of the greatest negative effects of war among us is that we lose the fear of the Lord and respect for authority,” the cleric said. He said once people don’t have the fear of the Most High in them, “it is difficult to live in peace.”

The archbishop said the country’s bishops will never rest until hostilities are brought to an end.

“As we leave Ebolowa, we are determined, as individuals and as a conference, to continue working for peace, reconciliation and justice, convinced that these will bring sustainable harmony to our country.”

He then warned against efforts at political manipulation of the church.

“The Catholic Church isn’t a political party where anyone can militate according to its political manifesto,” the cleric said.

“The Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ,” he noted and explained that both clergy and laity “must make Christ present in our world and in different societies.”

It is only when Christ is present in the different communities and in each individual, the archbishop argued, that there can be peace in the world.

“We have prayed for peace in our entire country, hoping that all the problems we are having will be resolved, and our people will once again live in peace.”

Source: Crux

Members of the Cameroon Catholic Bishops’ Conference known also as the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) are gathering in-person in Ebolowa for their 2023 General Meeting.

Topics being discussed by the Bishops’ Conference include the difficulties of sharing the Gospel in the modern world within the framework of the apostolic constitution; the work of the Bishops’, praying for peace and making sure that the cry of the poor is heard.

The 2023 National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) an annual seminar of the Bishops of Cameroon started on Saturday 7, 2023 and will end on Saturday 14, 2023.

By Rita Akana

As the pope’s ambassador to Cameroon moves on, leaving behind a country still torn apart by ethnic and linguistic divides despite his best efforts at peace, his final plea to the country was to embrace a spirit of “dialogue without prejudice.”

Archbishop Julio Murat, a Turkish prelate who’s served in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea since 2018, was named the new Apostolic Nuncio, or ambassador, to Sweden and Iceland Nov. 9.

During a Mass to bid him farewell organized by the Cameroon Episcopal Conference on December 12, 2022, Murat asked God and the Christians to forgive him “for his sins of omission.”

“If I hurt anyone unknowingly, please, forgive me,” he said.

“There are things you can’t forget in life, even if you have so much to do,” the nuncio said, and acknowledged the “tremendous” support he received from the Cameroon Bishops’ Conference, the Christians and the country’s authorities.

He expressed gratitude to Pope Francis for trusting him with the position and called for dialogue whenever there are differences.

“The Church wasn’t meant to separate people, but to unite those who are separated. And if there are differences as a result of different sensibilities, we should always be open to listen, to dialogue, without prejudice.”

Murat didn’t mention the one issue that has divided Cameroon and threatens to bring down the country’s very foundations: A separatist war in the country’s English-speaking regions, which has been raging since 2016.

The President of the Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Andrew Nkea lost no time in thanking the Apostolic Nuncio for his efforts at finding solutions to the crisis.

“You worked so hard to make sure that the poor and the vulnerable of our country are not forgotten,” Nkea said.

“Your love for peace, unity and reconciliation amongst Cameroonians characterized your stay in Cameroon. We will miss your spiritual diplomacy for the common good, especially for the people of the northwest and southwest regions.”

In those two territories, separatists have been fighting to create a new nation to be called “Ambazonia.” Fighting broke out in 2016 when the French-speaking central government took a hard stand against English-speaking teachers and lawyers who took to the streets to protest the over-bearing influence of French in Anglo-Saxon schools and Common Law Courts, which are signposts of the British colonial legacy to the two regions.

Nkea recalled that Murat was a key figure in the organization of a National Pilgrimage for Peace that took place at the Marian Shrine in Marienberg Edea from April 23-24, during which Cameroon was re-consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Noting that there was a time for everything, Nkea said that what’s important is “what happens between the time one is born and the moment one dies. It’s the same thing: when you arrive and when you leave is not important. What’s important is what happens between when you arrive and when you leave.”

Besides the search for peace in a divided nation, Nkea lauded the nuncio’s effort in creating a more harmonious atmosphere between the Church and the state.

“Your work in Cameroon filled a great void between the church and the state, and our church-state relations are now better understood,” he said.

In an apparent swipe at top government and religious officials present at the farewell mass, Nkea spoke at length about the notion of authority, and what it should mean in the exercise of their daily duties.

“A person in authority is not just anyone who wields coercive power over others,” the cleric said.

“The exercise of genuine authority is not to control, to keep in line, to command. On the contrary, it is to be an agent in releasing the potential that is in people: to be an empowering agent. Jesus didn’t wield coercive authority. He came not to be served but to serve. He came to lead people into the full development of what they could be, and what they were meant to be,” Nkea said.

The cleric explained that when Jesus went down on His knees to wash the feet of his disciples, it wasn’t a sign of weakness, “it was an act of authority, the authority of outreaching love.”

Noting that virtually everyone yielded some kind of authority, Nkea urged everyone to understand that all authority comes from God,” and we shall all one day answer to God how we used the authority that he gave us.”

“God gives us authority not to misuse, not to abuse, and not to impose our authority on others. All authority must be used in the fear of the Lord who is the source of all authority,” he explained.

With Christmas just days away, Nkea warned against “worldly, circular celebrations of Christmas,” and exhorted Christians to prepare to celebrate the coming Lord “with true joy and understanding…we cannot be distracted by all those excesses… and end up forgetting why we celebrate Christmas in the first place-our joy in the Lord’s coming and His salvation.”

Source: Crux