Archbishop Andrew Nkea, President of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, speaks to Vatican News about Pope Leo XIV’s Apostolic Journey to the country.
Pope Leo XIV has now departed from Cameroon, the second leg of his four-country Apostolic Journey across Africa. During his visit, the Pope made a number of powerful appeals: for peace in the country’s troubled Anglophone regions, for a renewed commitment to tackling corruption, for giving a future to the country’s young people.
What effect will those words have? Vatican News posed that question to Andrew Nkea, Archbishop of Bamenda and President of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon.
“The Pope has given speeches and messages,” the Archbishop said. “We have all clapped. We are all happy. What next? That question is very important for all of us.”
There are reasons for hope, Archbishop Nkea suggested, including in the troubled Anglophone regions, where the Pope’s visit brought life back to the streets, and had the government and separatist groups “speaking the same language” for the first time in a decade.
“The Pope’s visit was a tremendous blessing,” he said, “and we have already started seeing the signs of peace.”
The following is a lightly edited transcript of our interview with Archbishop Andrew Nkea.
Pope Leo has just left Cameroon. How did his visit go?
It was a wonderful opportunity for us, and Cameroonians were very happy to receive the Holy Father. He came here with a very strong message for Cameroon and for Cameroonians, and you could see from his speeches that he came here determined to give us part of the social teaching of the church. We heard it.
We are very, very happy that the visit has gone the way it has gone, and that everywhere populations came out in their numbers, and yet no incident was recorded. Above all, we discovered that in all three places there was no rain. The weather was beautiful, so it was a sign to us that God Himself blessed the visit with the success that we are claiming now.
One of the places the Pope visited was Bamenda, where you’re the Archbishop. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of that visit from the Pope, and the message he left behind?
It’s a very important message for us, because no one can adequately understand what we have gone through in Bamenda except those who live there. People read things on social media, people hear stories, but those of us who live there are living permanently in trauma.
For about eight years, Bamenda had been more or less abandoned. Our airport was not working, roads were broken, water was not flowing. So to get the Pope coming, and all these things start happening again, is a very big thing for us. You could see for yourself how joyful the population was. We have not seen that for a long time.
Another key part of the Pope’s message regarded young people – he encouraged them not to give up on their country, to have hope in the future.
One of the biggest problems we have with our youth is unemployment. Many of the youths come out with very good degrees, but they don’t have work. And secondly, there is also the problem of immigration. Since they don’t have work, they only think of going abroad, using all kinds of methods, trying to trek through the Sahara Desert, trying to hide inside the wheel compartment of planes.
The message of the Holy Father was very timely, both to the youth and to the authorities of the state: try to invest in the youth as the hope of the future of every country.