Pope Leo XIV received an ecstatic welcome when he arrived in the coastal city of Douala in southwestern Cameroon on Friday, April 17, to celebrate Mass at Japoma Stadium. More than 120,000 attended the Mass, which was held in the parking area next to the stadium in 90-degree heat.
He arrived in this city of 4.4 million inhabitants, which is the economic and commercial hub of the country and the Central African region, after a 20-minute flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. Thousands cheered him along the route from the local airport to the stadium.
At the beginning of Mass, a large group of young people danced to the sound of drums for the opening of the celebration. Many in the crowd danced along, reflecting the tremendous joy of these liturgical experiences, so different from what is experienced in much of the West.
Pope Leo also looked joyful as he watched the dance. Indeed, on the plane from Rome on Monday, he told reporters that he had wanted his first visit as pope to be to Africa, but plans to visit Turkey and Lebanon had been arranged under Pope Francis.
The Gospel of the day recounted how Jesus fed 5,000 hungry people with five barley loaves and two fish. Commenting on this, Pope Leo noted Jesus did this miracle after seeing that the crowd who had been with him all day were hungry.
Taking his cue from this story, Pope Leo drew attention to the food crisis and the poverty that is causing great suffering for so many people, even though the land is rich in agricultural and other resources. The pope has seen firsthand on his visit to Cameroon both widespread poverty and the opulence of the presidential palace.
Research by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Red Cross shows that almost 40 percent of the population of Cameroon is living below the poverty line, and 25.8 percent are in extreme poverty, especially in rural areas. Over three million struggle to find enough food for the day in the country’s north and east, where a study by the Red Cross revealed the existence of “a silent food crisis.”
Pope Leo, ever sensitive to the plight of the poor, told the vast crowd and the audience following on national television, “Jesus asks us today, just as he asked his disciples then: How will you solve this problem? Look at all these hungry people, weighed down by fatigue. What will you do?”
“This question is posed to each one of us,” Pope Leo said. “It is posed to the fathers and mothers who care for their families. It is directed to the shepherds of the church, who watch over the Lord’s flock, and also to those who bear social and political responsibility for the people and seek their well-being. Christ asks this question to the powerful and the weak, to the rich and the poor, to the young and the elderly, because we all hunger in the same way.”
“Our necessity reminds us that we are creatures,” he said. “We need to eat in order to live. We are not God: But where is God in the face of people’s hunger?”
Jesus gives us the answer, the pope said: He solved “a serious problem…by blessing the little food that was present and sharing it with all who were hungry. The multiplication of the loaves and the fish happened while sharing: That is the miracle!”
With this miracle, he said, Jesus “shows us not only how God provides humanity with the bread of life, but how we can share this sustenance with all men and women who, like ourselves, hunger for peace, freedom and justice.” Indeed, he said, “each act of solidarity and forgiveness, every good effort, becomes a morsel of bread for humanity in need of care.”
“But this alone is not enough,” Pope Leo added. “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.” That food “is Christ himself” who comes to us in the Eucharist, he said. And, “in Christ, the Father invites us to share what we have.” He recalled that “by becoming man to save us, he chose to share in the simplest and most everyday needs of humanity. Hunger thus speaks to us not only of our poverty but, above all, of his love.”
He told the people of Cameroon: “Let us remember this every time we see in their eyes a brother or sister who lacks life’s necessities. Through their eyes, the question that Jesus posed to his disciples is repeated: ‘What are you going to do for all these people?’”
At this point, Pope Leo changed from French to English and addressed the young people of Cameroon, where 15 percent of the population is under the age of 14 and 75 percent is under 34.
“You are the beloved children of the African continent,” he told them. “As brothers and sisters of Jesus, multiply your talents through the faith, perseverance and friendship that inspire you. Be the first faces and hands that bring the bread of life to your neighbors, providing them with the food of wisdom and deliverance from all that does not nourish them, but rather obscures good desires and robs them of their dignity.”
He reminded them that “despite the richness of the land in Cameroon, many experience both material and spiritual poverty,” and said: “Do not give in to distrust and discouragement. 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.”
He challenged them to “be protagonists of the future, following the vocation that God gives to each of you. Do not let yourselves be corrupted by temptations that waste your energies and do not serve the progress of society.”
He called on them to be “the prophetic voice of a new world” and learn from the first Christians who “gave courageous witness to the Lord Jesus in the face of difficulties and threats, and persevered even amid persecution.” He told them that “proclaiming this Gospel unceasingly is the mission of every Christian, and it is a mission that I entrust especially to you, dear young people, and to the entire church in Cameroon. Become Good News for your country.”
The missionary pope told them that proclaiming the Gospel “changes our lives, transforming minds and hearts.” Indeed, he said, “Proclaiming the risen Jesus means leaving signs of justice in a suffering and oppressed land, signs of peace amid rivalry and corruption, signs of faith that free us from superstition and indifference.”
They cheered and sang at the end of Mass, and applauded him warmly, ululating and waving their colorful scarves as well as the flags of Cameroon and the Vatican as he left the park to visit a hospital before returning to the capital city, Yaoundé.
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