1 of 2 | A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV and Cameroonian President Paul Biya shaking hands during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Yaounde, Cameroon, on Wednesday. Pope Leo XIV held a mass Friday in Douala, Cameroon in a stadium with an estimated 120,000 people. Handout Photo courtesy of Vatican Media/EPA
April 17 (UPI) — Pope Leo XIV held a mass on Friday in Douala, Cameroon, in a stadium with an estimated 120,000 people, marking Catholicism’s growth in Africa.
The pope discussed poverty, violence and corruption in his address to the people of Cameroon, where about 30% of the population is Catholic.
About 20% of the world’s Catholic population lives in Africa.
“Do not give in to distrust and discouragement,” the pope said. “Reject every form of abuse or violence, which deceives by promising easy gains but hardens the heart and makes it insensitive. Do not forget that your people are even richer than this land, for your treasure lies in your values: faith, family, hospitality and work.”
More than 37.7 million people live in poverty in Cameroon. The pope shared the story of Jesus multiplying loaves and fish, saying the “miracle” happened when they were shared.
“Yet this alone is not enough,” he said. “The food that sustains the body must be accompanied, with equal charity, by nourishment for the soul. A nourishment that sustains our conscience and steadies us in dark hours of fear and amid the shadows of suffering.”
The mass was held at Japoma Stadium on the third day of the pope’s 10-day tour of Africa. He will next visit Angola and later Equatorial Guinea during his trip.
Pope Leo spent Thursday in Bamenda, Cameroon, the epicenter of the Anglophone Crisis or Ambazonia War, an armed conflict between the government and separatist groups that has waged for nearly a decade.
