By Serge Banyongen
If Pope Leo XIV visits Cameroon, he will be welcomed by ceremonies and carefully curated images of stability, in which the Yaoundé regime excels. He must look past them.
He should learn first that Cameroon is not at peace with itself. For nearly a decade, the country has been at war with part of its own population in the North-West and South-West regions. Entire communities have been destroyed; thousands have died; close to a million people have been displaced internally or forced into exile. This is not a peripheral crisis. It is a moral rupture at the heart of a nation.
He should learn that power in Cameroon has become entrenched. Paul Biya, in office for over forty years, has just secured another term at the age of 93 in elections that independent observers overwhelmingly judge to be neither free nor fair. The aftermath has been harsh: young people killed in post-electoral repression; thousands detained, many without proper due process, in degrading conditions.
He should understand that a raging war has been devastating the NOSO region in Cameroon for nearly a decade, leaving thousands of families mourning over 10,000 deaths and nearly a million people internally displaced and refugees. Yet, all efforts to peacefully end the violence have been blocked by the regime, some of whose members are exploiting the war to increase their already excessive wealth.
He should understand that corruption is not accidental but structural. It has undermined institutions, stifled the economy, and transformed public authority into private privilege, forcing ordinary citizens to bear the burden through poverty, fear, and silence.
Above all, Pope Leo XIV must learn the truth about the suffering Church in Cameroon.
Priests, religious, and lay faithful have been murdered, some in cold blood. Two bishops, Mgr. Balla and Mgr. Plummey, along with countless priests and nuns, have died in circumstances that were never credibly investigated. Their deaths remain wounds that have yet to heal. When the Catholic Church has spoken prophetically, calling for justice, dialogue, and reform, it has been humiliated, intimidated, and pressured into silence.
A papal visit under these conditions risks being read by the powerful as absolution. That must not happen.
What the Pope Must Take Back. and Enshrine
From Cameroon, the Pope should take back a renewed insistence on three principles already embedded in Catholic social teaching but too often weakened by diplomatic caution:
The Primacy of Truth Over Stability
Peace without justice is not peace. Stability purchased through repression is a lie. The Church must state, without ambiguity, that fraudulent elections, indefinite rule, and mass incarceration violate human dignity and the moral law.
The Preferential Option for the Victims of Power
The Church’s neutrality is not indifference. When a state wages war against its own people, the Gospel requires a clear option for victims, especially youth, displaced families, prisoners, and silenced communities.
The Church’s Right and Duty to Speak
The killing and intimidation of clergy is an attack on the Church’s mission itself. Silence in response is not prudence; it is complicity. Episcopal courage must be defended, not disciplined.
If the Pope visits Cameroon (which, in all accounts of common sense, isn’t recommended), he must listen not only to presidents and protocol, but also to widows, prisoners’ families, displaced People, and frightened youths. He must return to Rome with their testimonies and ensure they influence doctrine, diplomacy, and the papal stance towards the Yaoundé regime.
A papal visit should never sanctify injustice. If it does not disturb the powerful, it has failed the Gospel.
*Serge Banyongen is a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa, and a Roman Catholic,
