“Today we are celebrating, the atmosphere (before the arrival of the Pope) is of tremendous excitement,” says Pablo Muñoz, a Verbum Dei missionary from Ciudad Real who arrived in Yaoundé (Cameroon) two and a half years ago, after thirty years of missionary experience in other countries, reports Pontifical Missionary Works (OMP) Spain.
“All the parishes are mobilized, the areas where the Pope will pass through have been distributed, so that Leo XIV can feel the warmth of the Cameroonian people,” adds Pablo Muñoz.
“An official cloth has been made, which is then sold and each one makes his shirt, his pants with it, and in this way there is a sense of union and celebration”, affirms this missionary. The preparation is noticeable even in the streets. “Here we joke that the Pope should come at least once a year, because they have fixed in a very short time streets that were impassable, they have made everything very beautiful”.
Lion XIV wanted to come to Cameroon since he was elected.
According to describes Pablo Muñoz, Cameroonian Catholics often feel social pressure for having abandoned traditional religions to embrace ‘a white religion’. “Catholics sometimes find it difficult to fully live their identity as Catholics, it is not always easy for them,” he explains.
“And so there is the temptation to be with one foot here and one foot somewhere else, to go to mass and also to go to the marabou - spiritual chief - to have him work his charms and deliver them from the spirits that haunt them.”.
Sense of belonging to the universal Church
The Pope's visit is an important moment for them. “I think that perhaps this visit can reinforce that sense of belonging to a universal reality, to the universal Church, which gives the assurance that this is really where I find salvation.”.
According to this missionary, already in June of last year Pope Leo XIV, one month after being elected Pope, asked the Nuncio in Cameroon to prepare this trip. “Many of the visits that the Pope has made up to now had been programmed by Pope Francis. But he wanted his first visit scheduled by him to be to Africa.”.
Cameroonian, African church
The increase of Catholics and the great strength of the Catholic Church in Cameroon is relevant when comparing these statistics with those of 95 years ago, explains OMP.
Today the Cameroonian Church is truly African and does not depend exclusively on the missionary impulse of the congregations and religious orders that did so much to spread the Gospel in the country.
André Kwa Mbangue was the first Cameroonian to be baptized in 1889, and since then the numbers of the Catholic Church in Cameroon have grown remarkably.
27.4 million inhabitants, almost 8 million Catholics
The Republic of Cameroon, whose capital is Yaoundé, has a population of 27,419,000 inhabitants, of whom 7,917,000 are Catholics; 28.87% of the population. There are 26 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 1,325 parishes and 4,821 other pastoral centers.
Currently there are 34 bishops, 3,108 priests, 3,301 religious sisters, and 26,694 catechists. There are 2,064 minor seminarians and 2,177 major seminarians.
A total of 403,763 students attend the 1,948 Catholic educational institutions, from nursery schools to university.
As far as charitable and social centers owned by the Church or run by ecclesiastics or religious, there are 601 in Cameroon: 44 hospitals, 294 clinics, 17 homes for the elderly and disabled, 35 orphanages, 5 leprosaria....
95 years ago, when the country had not even been constituted, the Catholic Church was articulated (it was 1932), in what is now Cameroon, through three apostolic vicariates (Foumban, Yaoundé and Douala). It had 246,742 Catholics and the number of priests was 77, none of them from the country. Along with this small number of priests, there were 32 non-priest religious brothers, 8 of whom were indigenous. There were 37 religious sisters, two of whom were African.
Growth supported by the entire Church
The Church in Cameroon is 100% mission territory, that is, all the dioceses are young churches that, having been founded by missionaries, are not self-sufficient either in human or economic terms, explains Pontifical Mission Societies.
The Pope takes special care of them every year, and he does so through OMP. This institution, which belongs to the Dicastery for Evangelization -formerly Propaganda Fide-, channels the contributions for the missions of all the Catholics of the world -through the Domund, Missionary Childhood and Native Vocations-. It distributes them in an equitable manner among the 1,132 mission territories of the Church.
In the case of Cameroon, the 26 dioceses receive this support annually. In the last 5 years, OMP has sent 13.4 million euros to support growth. This aid has been provided in three areas.
On the one hand, they have received nearly seven million from the Domund collections for the expenses of the evangelization day, the construction of 75 new parishes, and convents of various congregations, training of native catechists... which allow the Church to have a stable presence in new villages.
On the other hand, they have received more than two and a half million euros for children's projects from Infancia Misionera: diocesan schools, dispensaries, catechesis, refugee children in the English-speaking area, food....
Support for the 21 diocesan seminaries
Finally, the 21 diocesan seminaries in Cameroon are supported every year, without which many of them would have to close. In the last five years they have been supported with 3.8 million euros, thanks to the contributions to the Native Vocations Day, reports OMP.
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