To the Episcopal Conference

On Tuesday, 13 August 1985, the Holy Father addressed the Episcopal Conference in Yaoundé (Cameroon), seeing the Church in full development and recalling the first missionaries to bring the Faith to their land.

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate 

1. For three days now I have been travelling through - or at least flying over - your four ecclesiastical districts, in their rich diversity. I will retain a deep and moving memory of our popular gatherings, in which I was able to measure the joyful fervor of your Christian people and the availability of other populations. Baptized, confirmed, communicants, catechists, spouses and parents, young people and university students, men and women religious, deacons and priests have given me a beautiful testimony; I have been happy to pray with them and to exhort each one in his own apostolate. However, I am happy that these meetings are crowned by an exchange with you, my brothers, since the Lord has entrusted me with the task of the apostle Peter above all to help the unity, constancy and missionary zeal of the pastors, successors of the apostles.

Thus the wish that Monsignor Jean Zoa, as President of the Conference, had insistently expressed to me on the occasion of your “ad limina” visit in November 1982, was realized: to meet the Church of Cameroon in its seat, as I had done for some African countries. We have already woven personal bonds between us. I had already had a meeting with most of you, in Rome, and I conferred episcopal ordination on Monsignor Christian Tumi, who is now assuming the presidency of the Conference. I am happy to repeat my affection and my good wishes to each of you.

2. This evening, in this chapel, after so many graces received, do you want us to begin by turning to the Lord to thank him and to better become aware that all our work is his work?

Going back to the first apostles, I make my own the greeting of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians: “We thank God always for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers, continually remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and your work of love and your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” ( 1 Thess 1:2-3).

Yes, God be blessed! I have seen in your midst a Church in full development. I have gone back in my thoughts to the groups of missionaries who succeeded one another at various stages, in 1890, in 1916, in 1922 and in 1946. For these pioneers, one can speak of “constancy of hope”, when one knows the difficulties and the dedicated collaboration on which, moreover, they were able to rely immediately in this country. The growth of the community has been rapid, and so has the transition to an African leadership. We praise with equal fervour the bishops who have laid the foundations and who continue to be present in the work of their successors - Monsignor Plumey, Monsignor Loucheur, Monsignor Mongo - and all those who, today, consolidate the house. It is the Lord who has called you, chosen you, sanctified you, to accomplish through you his work of salvation. And while you worked, dear brothers, to the utmost of your strength, the Holy Spirit inspired that adherence to faith and that dynamism of charity that characterize Christians. It is to him that we give glory. And I would like all those who collaborate with you to also feel that they are instruments chosen by the Lord. I hope that, without neglecting the organization of the apostolate, they will always give primary place to prayer, that they will rely on the Holy Spirit who acts in them according to their availability, that they will experience great joy in serving the Lord in this way. Such is the spirit of the mission that must prevail.

3. As for the orientations to be adopted, the concrete actions to be carried out, the priority sectors to be considered, I have nothing to say on this occasion. We reviewed them in Rome in November 1982, and during these last three days we have given on the spot, to each of the groups or to the Christian people as a whole, the exhortations and advice that seemed appropriate. I will limit myself to underlining some aspects that struck me, so that you know how much I share your pastoral concerns. From you it can be said that evangelization must be begun, or deepened, or renewed.

Yes, the first evangelization must be continued, and we would like the Gospel to be presented without delay to the large number of Cameroonians who still know only traditional religions. This is striking in the North of Cameroon, but it exists in each diocese. In your “X-ray of the dioceses,” carried out with precision during your seminar held last January in Maroua, I noted that certain districts bordering Nigeria were still very little touched by the Gospel; and that elsewhere some parishes with catechumenate activity seemed to settle down and then lose their missionary zeal. Don’t you think it is necessary to stimulate in all your faithful and catechists, and above all in your priests, the desire that all their brothers in Cameroon benefit from the first proclamation of the faith? Perhaps we should emphasize not only the always welcome contribution of religious congregations, but also the help that other provinces could also give to the North. I entrust to you the words often said to Africans from Paul VI onwards: “You are your missionaries.”

4. Evangelization must be deepened above all among your baptized. Formation in the faith - as many adults, especially intellectuals, recognize - has too often remained at an embryonic stage, and sects easily take advantage of this ignorance. However, I know how much this is your concern, and I praise the initiatives you are trying to take to remedy it: catechesis, catechism manuals, meetings and above all the apostolate of the Bible. What is at stake is not only an increase in religious notions, always necessary, but the fact of permeating mentalities and customs.

“Traditional religions,” one of your documents said, “control the subconscious of the masses and the immense heritage of traditional culture” (Commission for the Apostolate of the Laity). Hence the place you rightly assign to the rooting of the Gospel in culture, and to the dialogue of religions, which presupposes, as I explained this afternoon to your intellectuals, a Christian as well as theological formation, to arrive at fruitful results without losing the Catholic identity.

5. Finally, evangelization today must be renewed, in the sense that the rapid evolution of society gives rise to new challenges, somewhat like those known to certain Churches of antiquity, in particular with the phenomena of family uprooting, urbanization, unemployment, with materialistic seductions of every kind, a certain secularization and an intellectual disorientation accentuated by the avalanche of ideas insufficiently criticized and by the influence of the means of social communication. You must therefore, with often very limited means, resolutely conduct a pastoral ministry suited to this new type of problem.

In this field, the circles that need increased and specialized help are undoubtedly those of intellectuals, officials and university students, and young people in technical secondary schools. It is a difficult but very important terrain, in which vitality should not be lacking. The future is at stake, since it is a question of training those in charge, those who tomorrow will be considered the elite. I was happy to be able to dedicate today's meetings to them. My letter to young people last spring, and the frequent exchanges I have with them in every part of the world, tell you enough about the importance that I personally attribute to you. I encourage you in the initiatives you take: among others, I have taken note with interest of the pastoral letter of the bishops of the four dioceses of the North addressed to young Christians. It is useful for priests and nuns to devote themselves more to this, and above all to support the apostolic movements of the laity, which will guarantee the presence, prayer, Christian reflection and testimony of Christians in these circles.

6. One area of ​​life that rightly remains a priority in your eyes is that of the family. You have dedicated many assemblies to this theme, and I have seen, in the province of Bamenda, what you are trying to do to prepare for marriage, to make known the beauty of conjugal love and its stability according to God's plan, so that the witness of Christian homes may give birth to others. I know the many obstacles you encounter in this area: they come from certain customs, from narrow demands expressed by other communities, and also from today's "letting go". However, it is a reality of capital importance, both for spouses and children, and for the work of evangelization as a whole. Women play an important role in this beautiful apostolate; and the same is true for the influence of religious women among young people and mothers.

We have already had occasion to recall other important areas: the formation of aspirants to the priesthood, for which you have created adequate structures, the pastoral care of male and female vocations, the formation of catechists and committed lay people, the support and quality of Catholic schools.

7. To all your diocesans you will repeat my exhortations, according to the vocation of each one, as I tried to do on the first evening, in the cathedral of Yaoundé. May all be happy to work in a complementary and irreplaceable way in the kingdom of God that is being built in Cameroon! May they be an incentive to one another, and always in charity, under your pastoral vigilance!

A certain number of your faithful would have liked to meet the Pope, on the unrepeatable occasion of his visit to their country, and they were unable to do so. Will you convey to them my blessing, assure them of my prayers for their intention, tell them that I too count on their prayers? Above all, I would like you to express my affection for the sick, the handicapped, the lepers, the elderly, the prisoners, whom I regretted not meeting for longer.

8. Also express my special trust in your direct collaborators who are the priests. The survey you have carried out seems to have shown that they have a good idea of ​​the priestly grace received, and of the demands of prayer and apostolic zeal that it entails. I know that their material situation is often difficult, it is a bit like the fate of all the disciples of Christ; I hope that you yourselves and the faithful will find a just solution, which will allow them to devote themselves entirely to the works of the priestly ministry of which your people have such need. And I am sure that all, priests born in Cameroon and priests coming from abroad, will know how to work in fruitful and fraternal collaboration, with the feeling of drawing advantage from this mutual exchange.

I urge you to continue the initiatives you have taken to awaken and support priestly and religious vocations in the four provinces. In this way, you will ensure the foundations of the Church of tomorrow! Continue to sensitize your faithful, invite them to pray for this intention.

9. This afternoon I mentioned the interest in founding a Catholic Institute of Higher Studies in Cameroon, in which theological questions and social doctrine could be studied in depth. I do not want to anticipate the possibilities and methods that are currently being studied in the broader context of Central Africa. However, I know that you have this desire, for your priests and laity and for all the apostolic workers of the region. I hope with you.

More generally, especially for the complex and necessary work of culturally rooting Christianity in Africa, it will be good to act in coordination with the other bishops of this part of Africa, or of the continent as a whole, as well as, as is quite evident, in trusting communion with the dicastery of the Apostolic See.

10. It was not my intention to give a complete overview of the tasks to be carried out. This would risk being discouraging if it were a purely human work, which necessarily appears complex and too vast, given the poverty of your means of apostolate. But it is in the work of God, as I said at the beginning, that we cooperate. The Lord asks us to sow, to sow tirelessly, to water; to put into this courage, tenacity, foresight, imagination, vigilance and a sense of co-responsibility. But the seed will be able to germinate and bear fruit only if it is good (cf. Mk 4:26-29), and if we entrust our work to God.

For my part, I never cease to admire the confidence of the apostle Paul: he founded, in a short time, a great number of Christian communities, where no one had ever sown. And he could not stay with them for long. He was bold, to say the least! But he knew to whom he was entrusting them: to the Lord and to the elders. He was certain that they would grow with the Holy Spirit. He continued to support them with prayer and with his letters.

For my part, my role is more modest. I did not found your communities. I rejoice in visiting them, in “confirming” them. I will never stop carrying them in my memory and in my prayers. I ask the Lord to fill you with his light and his strength, and in his name I bless you.
 

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