Ayo Fasoro

 

Pope Leo left Rome Fiumicino airport at 9.00 am local time, arriving in Algiers at 10.00am local time. A flight of two hours. Rome is one hour ahead of Algiers.

 

Thus began the Holy Father’s first visit to Africa as Bishop of Rome. In eleven days, the Pope will make stops in eleven cities.

 

The first Papal visit to Africa in the modern era happened in 1969 when Pope St. Paul VI visited Uganda for three days. During the visit, the Holy Father met with African Bishops. He consecrated twelve more Bishops for Africa. He visited Namugongo, a suburb of Kampala, location of the martyrdom of Charles Lwanga and Companions. On 3 June 1886, more than 30 Christian converts were burned to death at Namugongo on the orders of Kabaka Mwanga II.

 

The next papal visit to Africa would not happen until eleven years after. That was in May 1980 when Pope St. John Paul II came to Africa. Over an eleven day period, he visited Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

 

Algeria was the first stop on the ongoing apostolic visit of Pope Leo XIV to Africa. Other stops are in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. These countries are remarkably significant for the Church and for the world.  To each nation, the Pope carries messages of hope to confront the challenges they face.

 

 

From Algiers, Pope Leo arrived in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon, after 3 pm local time on Wednesday, 15 April. To welcome the Pope was President Paul Biya, the 93 year old ruler who has been in office for 43 years. Paul Biya’s father, was a catechist who, like many catechists, hoped that his son would, one day, become a priest. Paul Biya actually attended a junior seminary with the intention of fulfilling his father’s dream by becoming a priest. It did not happen. Politics, his second choice profession, seems to have paid off in the temporal realm. The one who couldn’t make it to the priesthood, made it to the presidency.

 

About thirty percent of Cameroonians profess the Catholic faith. They are spread across 26 dioceses in five ecclesiastic provinces. The country’s three largest cities are, as well, metropolitan sees: Yaounde, the second largest city and political capital, Douala, largest city and economic capital, and Bamenda, third largest city and hub of Anglophone Cameroon. The Holy Father visited all three.

 

Bamenda, the Metropolitan see of all English speaking dioceses of Cameroon is, as well, the epicentre of the armed struggle between the forces of survival and the forces of suppression. The Francophone Government and Anglophone separatist movements have been locked in an unending orgy of violence resulting in thousands of deaths. Roads are left not mended, Bamenda airport had been closed for eight years. In the words of Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya, Metropolitan of Bamenda, the people “lived permanently in trauma.”

 

Pope Leo’s visit started to bear fruits even before the Holy Father’s arrival.  The airport of Bamenda, closed for eight years, was opened and sophisticated equipment installed for the airplane carrying the Pope to be able to land. Abandoned roads in Bamenda were suddenly fixed and fitted with street lights because the Pope was coming to town.

 

Separatist groups under the banner of The Unity Alliance, noting “the profound spiritual importance” of the visit, announced a three-day pause in fighting, to welcome Pope Leo.

 

With the visit to Cameroon over, it is time for the seeds planted during the visit to be nurtured to fruition.  The challenge is to live the message of the Pontiff.

 

“Let us walk together, in love, searching always for peace”.