Religion – Page 22 – Cameroon Intelligence Report
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The death has occurred, after a brief illness, of the Vicar for clergy in the Bamenda Archdiocese, Rev Fr. Patrick Nyuydini Lafon, who also moonlighted as lecturer at the Catholic University of Bamenda.

Archbishop Andrew Nkea expressed his sympathy to the family and friends of the Vicar and said priests of the metropolitan Archdiocese were saddened by the news of his passing as he held, over many years, several roles of leadership and responsibility in the Archdiocese of Bamenda and nationally.

Fr. Patrick Lafon was ordained a priest 43 yrs ago and was among the last outstanding academic batch of Cameroonian priests trained in Bigard seminary that celebrated their forty years in priesthood in 2017.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands that his final alumni celebration included Fr John Bosco Ambe, Fr William Neba, Fr Polycarp Fonjock (RIP) and Fr Martin Kima.

Fr. Lafon was National Catholic Education Secretary, and Secretary General of the National Episcopal Conference.

He spent 15 years in the nation’s capital and facilitated the growth and solid establishment of the English speaking Catholic Communities in Yaoundé from Etougebe to Nsimeyong.

He mastered the modus operandi of the Cameroon Catholic Church hierarchy, and gained a reputation for speaking truth to power, in very difficult times such as the tragic death of Fr Patrick Adeso at the Catholic University, unexplained till date.

At the end of his tenure in French Cameroun, Fr. Lafon pursued a doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America, CUA (Washington DC) in Metaphysics under the direct supervision of renowned John Wippel, a leading scholar on Thomistic Metaphysics, and wrote a thesis on “Virtue in Politics” according to Yves Simon.

Upon return he was made principal of St Paul’s College, Nkwen, and lecturer in Metaphysics & Epistemology at STAMS Bambui. When the Catholic University in Bamenda opened the Department of Philosophy, he became a part of the CATUC family and rose to the rank of Dean of Faculty replacing Prof Paul Nkwi.

Fr. Lafon’s last public appearance was his coordination of the encounter between the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Palorin with the clergy of the Archdiocese of Bamenda. He was frank, candid and he provided a thoughtful key to understanding the Southern Cameroons Crisis.

He will be greatly missed by his students at St John Paul II Major Seminary, Bachuo Ntai in Manyu Division, where he lectured Metaphysics & Epistemology and also those of CATUC, where he recently launched the Doctoral Program in Philosophy.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Pope Francis appointed Mgsr. Jerome Feudjio on Tuesday to lead the Diocese of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Originally from Cameroon, Feudjio has served as a priest of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ diocese for more than 30 years.

Commenting on Feudjio’s March 2 appointment, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the apostolic administrator of St. Thomas diocese, said: “Bishop-Elect Jerome is no stranger to the people of the diocese. His long history of service and pastoral dedication to the people of this community of faith are well known and widely respected,”

Feudjio, 65, currently serves as the vicar general of the Diocese of St. Thomas and rector of its Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.

The Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands was established in 1977 and is the sole suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Washington. The diocese is made up of 30,000 Catholics across the islands of St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, and Water Island.

Feudjio first arrived in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1988 after Cardinal Seán O’Malley, who at the time was a coadjutor bishop of St. Thomas, invited him to work as a campus minister in the Saints Peter and Paul School.

Two years later, he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of St. Thomas and appointed as parochial vicar of the cathedral. He taught French and religion at the Catholic school and went on to serve in multiple positions within the diocese, including as director of vocations, finance officer, administrator, and chancellor.

Born in Cameroon in 1955, Feudjio entered religious life at the age of 17 as a postulant for the Congregation of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart (SCJ). He attended their Saint Apostles Seminary in Otele, Cameroon, from 1972 to 1975, as well as the major seminary in the capital city of Yaoundé from 1975 to 1979.

While still in formation in 1980, Feudjio traveled to the United States, where he met the then Fr. Seán O’Malley, who invited him to stay and study in Washington, D.C.

Feudjio completed his studies in philosophy and theology in the Archdiocese of Washington at Oblate College, and in 1987 joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, making a temporary religious profession.

During his time in the U.S., Feudjio completed a graduate program at Southern Illinois University in the Administration of Justice Program, through which he interned at a local transitional house that helped former inmates readjust to society.

In 2004, Bishop George V. Murry, S.J., who served as bishop of St. Thomas from 1999 to 2007, asked Feudjio to return to Southern Illinois University to pursue further graduate studies in Rehabilitation Administration.

Feudjio has served as rector of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in the U.S. Virgin Islands since 2008.

As bishop of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Feudjio will succeed Bishop Herbert Bevard, who retired in September after he was hospitalized and airlifted to the U.S. mainland for medical treatment.

“Regrettably, I have experienced some new and unanticipated medical conditions that unfortunately preclude my ability to continue to maintain my position in the Diocese of St. Thomas,” Bevard wrote in a letter to the diocese on Sept. 18.

“I have loved serving the People of God; the clergy, religious, laity, and the entire Virgin Islands community in the Diocese of St. Thomas and will treasure the fond memories that we share together. It is this same love and concern for them, recognizing my own limitations, that now compel me to make this request,” he said.

Bevard, 75, has remained in North Carolina for ongoing medical treatment. He led the Diocese of St. Thomas for 12 years.

Pope Francis appointed the then Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington to serve as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of St. Thomas until the new bishop is installed.

“I readily join the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands today in warmly welcoming Pope Francis’ appointment of Msgr. Jerome Feudjio as the sixth Bishop of this local Church,” Cardinal Gregory said.

“He now begins a new chapter in his own life and in all of your lives as well. Please keep him in your prayers as he transitions into his new office as I am certain he will hold all of you securely in his daily prayers from this day forward.”

Source: Angelusnews

Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin expresses Pope Francis’ closeness and concern for Cameroon and the African continent, in his homily during the imposition of the pallium on Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda.

“The Pope is well aware of the difficulties that you have experienced in recent years and which you are still experiencing. He implores the Lord’s consolation for you, especially for those who have been victims of violence or who, in this crisis, have lost friends and loved ones.”

Those were the words delivered by Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in his homily at Mass in Bamenda for the imposition of the pallium on Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya.

He expressed Pope Francis’ closeness to the people of Cameroon, as well as to the entire African continent.

The Pope, added the Cardinal, “joins in the desire for peace and reconciliation that rises from this beloved and wonderful land toward God.”

Reconciliation, compassion, hospitality

Cardinal Parolin arrived in Cameroon last Thursday accompanied by Monsignor Ivan Santus, an official with the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State.

His visit is meant to be a concrete sign of the Pope’s commitment and solidarity, and a call to promote compassion, reconciliation, and healing, especially in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 humanitarian emergency.

In communion with the Pope

“The Pallium,” explained Cardinal Parolin in Bamenda Cathedral, “is a symbol of a special bond of communion with the Pope. It is woven from the wool of lambs blessed by him on the feast of St. Agnes, and evokes the figure of the Good Shepherd, who goes in search of the lost sheep and places it on His shoulders. It represents the power that the Archbishop exercises in his Diocese, in communion with the Supreme Pontiff. It is a sign rich in meaning, which powerfully inaugurates the mandate of every new Archbishop: his new ministry is placed from the beginning under the sign of communion, in obedience and union with the Holy Father and in communion with his brother Bishops.”

With the Gospel in his pocket

“While many voices resound around us; while so many want to act as teachers in our lives,” the Cardinal stressed, we need to give “unique weight to the Word of Christ.”

“For this reason,” he added, “the Pope, on several occasions, has invited us to carry a small book of the Gospels with us. ‘The Gospel in your pocket’ is not a slogan but a spiritual program.”

The effectiveness of the Word

“Jesus desires good for humanity, and therefore frees us from Evil,” said Cardinal Parolin. “Jesus is able to completely free us precisely through His simple and powerful Word: Come out of him! There are no magic formulas; not even strange gestures: it is His Word that is exceedingly effective.”

The Secretary of State underlined that “Evil exists and Christ is able to defeat it. It is up to us to carry on this battle every day.”

Serenity and vigilance

Cardinal Parolin then evoked the teaching of the Apostle Paul, indicating two important themes that must mark each person’s spiritual journey: serenity and vigilance.

“Serenity: because with Christ we are victorious, in our adherence to Him through prayer and the Sacramental life. Vigilance: so that we can discern Evil where it lurks, beginning with our own hearts.”

Seed of hope

Cardinal Parolin then urged the faithful of Cameroon to combat the violence, divisions and fratricidal struggles that afflict the nation.

“He who fights against the evil that dwells in his heart becomes a bearer of good and peace in his family, among his friends, in his community. He thus becomes a seed of hope for all.”

Avoiding the risk of spiritual pride

The Vatican Secretary of State concluded his homily by recalling that after two thousand years, amazement before the Lord Jesus is a precious attitude to be guarded with care.

“We should never stop reflecting on this Mystery, so that we avoid the risk of spiritual pride, of those who are convinced that they already know everything about Jesus, without realizing that He is always greater than we can humanly comprehend. We should never cease to marvel before the fundamental Mystery of our Christian faith: that of the Son of God who became man to set us free.”

The Mass in the Cathedral of Bamenda was attended by a large number of the faithful, offering a sign of affection for Archbishop Fuanya and of joyful communion with the Pope who was represented by his Secretary of State.

Source: Vatican News

The Vatican’s Secretary of State kicked off a week-long trip to Cameroon on Thursday in which he will visit a region blighted by clashes between government forces and separatists.

During his visit from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3, Cardinal Pietro Parolin is scheduled to meet with the local authorities and Cameroon’s Catholic bishops in the country’s capital, Yaoundé, and visit the English-speaking Northwest Region.

Local media in Cameroon have reported that the cardinal will likely use his visit to work towards the resolution of the dispute known as the Anglophone crisis.

Both the Holy See and the local Church have appealed for dialogue to end the strife. One of the Catholic leaders who has played an active role in seeking a resolution is Cardinal Christian Tumi, who was kidnapped by gunmen in Cameroon’s Northwest Region on Nov. 5.

A video published on social media showed the 90-year-old cardinal calmly responding as one of his captors confronted him about his calls for separatist fighters in Cameroon to lay down their arms. To this, the cardinal responded: “I will preach what is the truth with pastoral conviction and biblical conviction.”

“Nobody has the right to tell me to preach the contrary because I was called by God,” Cardinal Tumi said. He was released by his kidnappers on Nov. 6.

The crisis in Cameroon is rooted in country’s colonial history. The area was a German colony in the late 19th century, but the territory was divided into British and French mandates after the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. The mandates were united in an independent Cameroon in 1961, but English-speakers have complained ever since of marginalization by the French-speaking majority.

There is now a separatist movement in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, which were formerly the British Cameroons. Violence escalated in October when gunmen attacked Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy, a school in Kumba in Cameroon’s Southwest region, on Oct. 24 and opened fire on students in a classroom. Seven students aged 12 to 14 were killed.

Pope Francis prayed on Oct. 28 that “the tormented regions of the northwest and southwest of [Cameroon] may finally find peace.”

In Cameroon’s Northwest Region, Parolin will offer Mass on Jan. 31 at the Catholic cathedral in Bamenda, where he will give the pallium to Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya.

Nkea, 55, was appointed archbishop of Bamenda in December 2019. He is known for his emphasis on family, community, and traditional values.

At the 2018 meeting of the Synod of Bishops on young people, faith, and vocational discernment, Nkea, who was the bishop of Mamfe at the time, said that the Church in Cameroon and many parts of Africa was growing — including among young people.

“My churches are all bursting, and I don’t have space to keep the young people,” Nkea said during a Vatican press conference in Oct. 2018. “And my shortest Mass would be about two and a half hours.”

A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that church attendance and prayer frequency was highest in sub-Saharan Africa and lowest in Western Europe. Four out of five Christians in Cameroon said that they prayed every day.

During the synod on young people, Nkea credited the Church’s growth in Cameroon to the alignment between Church teaching and the values of Cameroonian society, and the strength of the family as a cultural institution.

“People ask me, ‘Why are your churches full?’” Nkea said in 2018. “Coming from Africa, the family is a very, very strong institution.”

“We come from a culture in which tradition normally is handed from one generation to the other.”

“Our traditional values still equate to the values of the Church, and so we hand over the tradition to our young people undiluted and uncontaminated,” he continued, noting that a strong sense of community in the Church is something “very important that Europe can learn from Africa.”

Source: The Catholic News Agency

Pope Francis is to meet top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani during the first-ever papal visit to Iraq in March, a senior Catholic cleric told AFP on Thursday.

Louis Sako, patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church, said it would be a “private visit” between the two religious figures at Sistani’s residence in the shrine city of Najaf, “without formalities.”

Sistani, 90, is never seen in public and rarely accepts visitors. The confirmation of the bilateral meeting comes weeks after other parts of the Pope’s visit were set.

Sako said he hoped the two figures would sign the document on “human fraternity for world peace,” an inter-religious text condemning extremism.

Pope Francis signed the document with the leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, in February 2019.

Sako said the pope was hoping for endorsement from an influential Shiite cleric like Sistani.

“He would represent the second major part of Islam signing on to this historic document,” the cardinal told AFP.

Pope Francis is set to be in Iraq from March 5 to 8 with an ambitious programme that will take round the country.

In Baghdad, he will hold a mass at the Church of Our Lady of Salvation, where a deadly attack in 2010 left dozens of celebrants dead.

He will also travel north to Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh plains, overrun by the Islamic State group in 2014, and the nearby Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

Following his visit to Sistani, he will travel to the ancient city of Ur, where Abraham is said to have been born.

The Pope will hold an inter-religious prayer service there, to be attended by representatives of Iraq’s various faiths — Shiite and Sunni Muslim, Yazidi and Sabean, Sako said.

– ‘A source of hope’ –

Iraq once counted more than 1.5 million Christians, but the community has been ravaged by successive conflicts.

Following the US-led invasion of 2003, sectarian warfare prompted followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee and attacks by IS in 2014 further hit all minority communities.

Now, an estimated 400,000 Christians remain in Iraq, out of a total population of 40 million.

Many have expressed hope that the Pope’s visit will highlight the challenges facing the community, including prolonged displacement and little representation in government.

“It will be a comfort and a source of hope,” Sako said.

He said Christians were suffering from the weakness of the Iraqi state, compared to other armed actors and even tribes that were threatening the presence of minorities.

“It’s like the Middle Ages,” said the cardinal.

Much of Iraq is no longer experiencing active conflict but a twin suicide blast a week ago killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens more.

The Pope condemned that attack as a “senseless act of brutality.”

But overall, Iraqis have been more concerned by a severe economic downturn prompted by the collapse in world oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused thousands of deaths in the country over the past year.

The spread of the virus appears to have slowed according to official numbers, and Pope Francis was recently vaccinated.

Source: AFP

Both Pope Francis and his predecessor, former pope Benedict XVI, have received the coronavirus vaccine, the Vatican said on Thursday.

The Argentine pontiff, 84, has previously spoken of the importance of the jab in the fight against Covid-19, which has severely curtailed his own love of being among his flock.

Under the Vatican’s vaccination programme launched Wednesday, “the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine has been administered to Pope Francis and the Pope Emeritus,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

It had already been reported that Francis, 84, had received the jab on Wednesday, but officials declined to confirm the news.

The Vatican News portal said Benedict, 93, was given a dose on Thursday morning.

The former pontiff, who stepped down in 2013, lives in a converted monastery in the Vatican gardens.

In an interview broadcast at the weekend, Francis urged people to get the vaccine.

“There is a suicidal denial which I cannot explain, but today we have to get vaccinated,” he told Canale 5.

The Vatican in December said it was “morally acceptable” for Catholics even where the vaccines had been developed using cell lines from aborted foetuses.

In his Christmas message last year, Francis also added his voice to calls for vaccines to be available across the globe, not just in rich countries.

He urged “vaccines for all, especially the most vulnerable and most in need in all regions of the planet”.

– Iraq trip in doubt –

The Argentine has been forced to limit his interaction with the public since the virus first swept Italy early last year, notably switching his weekly Wednesday audiences online.

Francis conceded at the weekend that his historic trip to Iraq planned for March, the first visit by a pope to the Middle Eastern country, could be in doubt.

Recalling how he was forced to cancel his foreign trips last year due to the pandemic, he said: “I don’t know if the upcoming trip to Iraq will happen.”

He added: “I cannot in all conscience encourage gatherings.”

There are serious concerns about how Francis would cope if he himself became infected, given both his age and his history of lung problems.

The pope almost died when he was 21 after developing pleurisy, according to biographer Austen Ivereigh, and had part of one of his lungs removed.

He recalled the incident in a recent book, “Let Us Dream”, saying: “I have some sense of how people with coronavirus feel as they struggle to breathe on ventilators.”

Media reports suggested Pope Francis received the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, which was authorised for use in the European Union on December 21.

Source: AFP

With a ball made from rags and surging adrenaline, the young Jorge Bergoglio and his friends pulled off “miracles” playing football in the street, Pope Francis recalled on Saturday.

Now 84, the Argentine pope remembered “the joy, the happiness on everyone’s faces,” after the 1946 victory of his Buenos Aires team, San Lorenzo, in a 31-page interview about sport published Saturday in Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The first pope from Latin America called Diego Maradona a “poet” on the field, as he weighed in on the joys of sport.

Expounding on themes of hard work, sacrifice and camaraderie, Francis shared memories of the makeshift footballs that sufficed to exhilarate him and his boyhood friends.

“Leather cost too much and we were poor, rubber wasn’t used so much yet, but for us all we needed was a ball of rags to amuse ourselves and to create miracles, almost, playing in the little square near home,” Francis said.

Acknowledging he was “not among the best” of the footballers, Bergoglio played goalkeeper, which he characterised as a good school for learning how to respond to “dangers that could arrive from anywhere”.

The pontiff — described by the paper as “a pope of the people in the most noble sense of the term” — touched on the need for teamwork and working towards a shared goal.

“Either you play together, or you risk crashing. That’s how small groups, capable of staying united, succeed in taking down bigger teams incapable of working together,” he said.

The interview, which took place in early December at the Vatican, also saw the pope condemn doping in sport and stress the need to nurture talent through hard work.

“It’s not only a cheat, a shortcut that revokes dignity, but it’s also wanting to steal from God that spark which, through his mysterious ways, he gave to some in a special and greater form,” he said.

Francis called the Olympics “one of the highest forms of human ecumenism”, involving “sharing effort for a better world”.

– Fragile poet –

He recalled meeting Argentine footballer Maradona, who died in November, during a “match for peace” in Rome in 2014.

“On the field he was a poet, a great champion who brought joy to millions of people, in Argentina as well as Naples. He was also a very fragile man,” Francis said.

The pontiff said that after learning of Maradona’s death, he prayed for him and sent a rosary to his family with some words of comfort.

The pope, who has made inclusion of marginalised people one of the central themes of his papacy, shared his amazement and emotion at the accomplishments of the athletes who compete in the Paralympic Games, while expressing disappointment at “rich champions” turned “sluggish, almost bureaucrats of their sport.”

Sport, he said, was marked by the efforts of so many of those who, “with sweat on their brows” beat those born with “talent in their pockets”

“The poor thirst for redemption: give them a book, a pair of shoes, a ball and they show themselves capable of unimaginable achievements.”

Source: AFP

In Cameroon, thousands of Muslims are joining Christians in churches all over the country in Christmas prayers for peace in 2021. For the annual tradition this year, the Inter-Denominational Prayer for Peace group focused on Cameroon’s troubled western regions and COVID-19.

Muslims in Cameroon joined together with Christians Friday to celebrate Christmas and offer an annual prayer for peace.

Cheikh Oumarou Mallam is president of the Islamic Superior Council of Cameroon and a member of the Inter-Denominational Prayer for Peace group.

This year, he says, they prayed for an end to COVID-19 and peace on the border with Nigeria, where security forces have been battling the Islamist militant group Boko Haram for close to 10 years.

Mallam says they prayed especially for an end to the separatist conflict in Cameroon’s western regions, which has left more than 3,000 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“Be loyal to your country,” Mallam said. “Compete for goodness through social work and community service to enhance people’s lives and improve the progress of the society. Let us be united building our nation. Let us be united for peace, safety, security, unity, reconciliation and prosperity.”

Anglophone rebels have been fighting in the western regions since 2016 to carve out an independent state from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

The separatists have destroyed symbols of the state, such as schools and bridges, as well as mosques and churches.

Reverend Father Humphrey Tatah Mbui is director of communications at the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon’s Catholic Bishops.

He spoke by telephone from the northwestern town of Bamenda, the capital of the troubled region.

“If there is any Cameroonian who has not learnt from the 4-year war{separatist crisis} that might, force, violence does not, will not, cannot and should not be able to solve the problem, then I wonder if that person will ever learn,” Mbui said. “What is going on is horrendous and therefore justice and peace should be the message that all of us should talk about. We have everything to gain in peace than in war.”

Christmas songs play on the speakers at the Our Lady of Victories Metropolitan Cathedral in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.

Far from the separatist conflict, the focus is on another battle – to defeat COVID-19.

Cameroon instructed churches to guard against the spread of COVID-19 during Christmas day activities.

To fight the spread of the virus, Cameroon’s churches are holding multiple Christmas day services.

Church usher Christian Olinga says they are also limiting access to the cathedral.

He says the catholic church asked him to make sure the government’s instructions are respected – no one will be granted access to the cathedral without a face mask. Olinga says worshipers and guests must sit two meters from each other and there are enough hand washing basins and sanitizers in the church.

Cameroon has confirmed nearly 26,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 400 deaths since the first case in March.

A surge of more than 2,000 new infections this month raised concern that holiday gatherings could see numbers increase further. Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Muslims and Christians are praying for a healthy and peaceful new year.

Source: VOA