MAIN EVENTS
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15 April 2026
Iniziative (EN) -
Maison de la Paix (EN)
A delegation from the “United States of the World” and the “Mediterranean Foundation” is taking part in the main events in Cameroon to mark the visit of Pope Leo XIV. The Pope meets over one hundred thousand people representing the people of Cameroon and of that “plundered” Africa, as he himself described it, repeating Christ’s question to his disciples in the passage on the multiplication of the loaves and fishes: This is the Gospel proclaimed at Mass in Douala, the economic capital with four million inhabitants, overlooking the ocean, an hour’s flight from Yaoundé, which the Pontiff is visiting on his apostolic journey through four nations of the continent. By car, Leo XIV travels along the main road that cuts through the shanty towns that plague Africa. He passes between the wooden shacks and the families living on the barren land. Then he arrives at the “Japoma Stadium” in the “Africa Cup of Nations” sports complex, where he celebrates the Eucharist. The heat is scorching. And in the popemobile, he makes his way through the crowd amidst singing and dancing. During the liturgy, Leo XIV quotes the question from Scripture which, he says, today “is addressed to those who bear the social and political responsibility of looking after the people and their welfare”. And they have the duty to respond to the “hunger of the people” that humiliates a large part of humanity, he denounces. “A hunger for peace, for freedom, for justice,” he is keen to emphasise. And a hunger for “food” that is “rationed in times of emergency”, “stolen in times of strife”, “wasted by those who gorge themselves whilst others have nothing to eat”. The alternative to greed is the “miracle” of “sharing”, as the Pope calls it in his homily delivered in both French and English. And he warns: “There is bread for everyone if it is given to everyone. There is bread for everyone if it is taken not with a hand that grasps, but with a hand that gives”.
Of course, explains Leo XIV, ‘the food that nourishes the body must be combined with equal charity with the nourishment of the soul’. Because ‘many experience poverty, both material and spiritual’, he says, addressing young people. And he reserves a special word of encouragement for them: “Do not give in to mistrust and discouragement; reject all forms of abuse and violence, which deceive by promising easy gains but harden the heart and make it insensitive. Be protagonists of the future, following the vocation that God gives to each of you, without allowing yourselves to be bought by temptations that squander your energies and do not serve the progress of society’. He points to Floribert Bwana Chui as an example for them, the young Congolese man of Sant’Egidio who was martyred for opposing corruption and was the first person to be beatified during the pontificate of Leo XIV.
