Pope Leo XIV will visit four African nations in April, the Vatican said Thursday, including Algeria – the first time a pope will travel to the North African Muslim nation.

The Vatican announced a series of international trips in the months ahead for the US pontiff, who was elected last year, including to Spain and Monaco.

But the official trip to Algeria, which will see Leo visit Algiers and Annaba from April 13 to 15, will be particularly symbolic.

Algeria is the birthplace of the fifth-century St Augustine and the pope belongs to the Augustinian order, which was founded in the 13th century.

Islam is the state religion but the constitution guarantees freedom of worship, subject to approval by the authorities for the place of worship and the preacher.

Leo’s visit, which is expected to focus on interfaith dialogue, comes 30 years after the beheading of seven French Trappist monks from a monastery during the 1990s civil war.

The head of the Catholic Church will then visit Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.

Leo will visit Yaounde, Bamenda and Douala from April 15 to 18, then Luanda, Muxima and Saurimo between April 18 and 21, before travelling to Malabo, Mongomo and Bata between April 21 and 23.

The pope is likely to appeal for peace and dialogue while in Angola and Cameroon, where long-running separatist struggles continue to kill civilians.

Monaco, Spain

Before his trip to Africa, the pontiff will visit Monaco for a day, the Vatican said.

The visit to the principality on the French riviera will take place on March 28 and will be the first papal trip to the city state in modern times.

A statement from the principality in the name of Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene said it would be “a historic moment for Monaco and stand as a strong sign of hope, in a spirit of dialogue, peace, and shared responsibility”.

Leo will also visit Spain from June 6 to 12.

The Vatican News website said he would first visit the capital Madrid, and then travel to Barcelona, where he will inaugurate the newest and tallest tower of the Sagrada Familia Basilica.

The visit marks 100 years since the death of its Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi, who was declared “venerable” by the Catholic Church in 2025, the first step on the path to sainthood.

Leo will then travel to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, a key point on the migration route to Europe.

The American pope, who became head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, is a vocal defender of migrants, an issue which was also dear to his predecessor Pope Francis.

While in the Canary Islands, Leo will visit Tenerife and Gran Canaria, Vatican News said.

The announcements of the trips follow news the pope will visit a series of areas within Italy in the coming months, including the island of Lampedusa.

Source: AFP

Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo in Cameroon’s war-torn North West region has denounced a decade of violence that has plagued Cameroon’s two English-speaking North West and South West regions.

The two regions have since 2016 been embroiled in conflict, with separatists fighting to break away from the rest of the country and form a new nation to be called Ambazonia.

The crisis was triggered by a harsh government crackdown on teachers and lawyers from the two regions who were protesting the use of French in Anglo-Saxon schools and courts. But Cameroon’s English-speaking minorities have always voiced historical grievances, complaining about the systematic erosion of their culture and way of life by the predominantly French-speaking government.

Ten years of fighting have left at least 6500 people dead, and more than a million forced to flee from their homes.

In his Lenten letter, Nkuo laments that the conflict, marked by killings, abductions, and a new crisis of human trafficking, risks becoming “normalized” among a suffering population.

He said his diocese in particular has “endured ten painful years of conflict, fear, displacement, uncertainty, and deep sorrow,” and expressed fear that war could become normalized.

In his pastoral letter, titled “Return to Me with All Your Heart” (Joel 2:12), the Cameroonian bishop wrote, “For many in our land, every day has felt like Lent. Every day has carried ashes, and every day has carried tears, and yet Lent is not only about ashes. It is also about return and about conversion and about hope.”

He explained that this profound suffering has permeated every facet of life.

“Young and old. Christians and non-Christians. Catholics and non-Catholics. Farmers, teachers, catechists, traders, pupils, mothers, and fathers” have suffered, he said.

“We have witnessed killings, abductions, kidnappings, disappearances, burning of homes, looting, sexual violations, extortion, and constant fear. Entire villages have lived in anxiety. Schools have closed. Farms have been abandoned. Youth have fled,” the bishop added.

He warned that the region runs the risk of “getting used to what should never be normal.”

“Violence is never normal. The shedding of innocent blood is never acceptable,” Nkuo explained.

He made it clear that Kumbo Diocese “is not a battlefield,” nor is it a “slaughter slab where human beings are butchered, nor is it a training ground where soldiers train for war and by so doing get normal to the sounds and guns and missiles and explosives.”

While a decade of war has left a trail of death and destruction, it has also forged another crisis: Human trafficking.

Traffickers prey on the vulnerability of war-battered youth, forcing them into modern-day slavery. Nkuo describes this as “another grave wound” on the diocese, explaining that youths “are being lured with false promises of employment. Families are extorted for ransom. Some have disappeared into modern-day slavery.”

In comments to Crux, Lukong Isidore Njodzeven, the deputy Diocesan coordinator for the Justice and Peace Commission of the Kumbo Diocese, revealed that more than 3000 Cameroonians have been trafficked across the border to Nigeria.

He described the area around the Kumbo Diocese as “a catchment area” where traffickers find easy prey on desperate young people eager to escape from war and poverty to better their lives.

According to UNICEF reports, approximately 800,000 children were forced out of school due to the conflict.

“Moreover, the crisis has intensified poverty, further weakening resistance to trafficking and exploitation,” Njodzeven told Crux.

In his statement, Nkuo said the young people should be in classrooms and not in camps.

“They should be in farms and industries and not in bondage,” the bishop said.

“You are not forgotten. You are not disposable,” he told the youth.

“You are not destined for armed groups or trafficking camps. You are the future of this Diocese. You are the hope of this land,” Nkuo said.

He said that the process of healing will begin when forgiveness steps into the picture

“Let us choose gentleness. Let us choose courage. Let us choose peace,” he implored. “Many of us are tired, and many among us feel abandoned. But we must not lose hope. God is not finished with Kumbo.”

Speaking to Crux, the bishop said the ultimate solution to the conflict lies in “frank and sincere dialogue that should address the root causes of the crisis.”

“You cannot resolve a conflict without addressing the roots of that conflict,” Nkuo said.

Source: Crux

The announcement of the Holy Father’s decision was read on Friday, 13 February 2026, by His Grace Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Bamenda Archdiocese.

Archbishop Nkea made the announcement at the St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda before a crowd of faithful. This appointment by Pope Leo XIV is a form of recognition for Father John Berinyuy.

In November 2025, Father John Berinyuy Tatah was kidnapped in the district of Ndop, in the North-West region. He was released a few days later after the expiry of the ultimatum set by Archbishop Andrew Nkea, who had warned that Catholic institutions in the area would be closed if the priest remained in captivity beyond 26 November. The Archdiocese had also planned a peaceful march to demand his release.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Fon Lawrence

Cameroon’s possible inclusion in the itinerary of Pope Leo XIV’s first African trip is drawing growing debate, as security concerns, political tensions and moral objections raise questions about whether the country is ready for a papal visit. While Cameroon has been rumored as a potential stop, no visit has been confirmed, even as Leo has accepted invitations to Equatorial Guinea and Angola, with Algeria being a desired stop as well.

Cameroon’s leading political scientist and expert on security, Kinang Derick, suggested that the nation is simply not yet prepared to host the pontiff safely. In a conversation with OSV News, the scholar said that the immense strain on Cameroon’s security infrastructure, following the contested Oct. 12, 2025, presidential election, could be a major stumbling block.

“Cameroon is just coming out from an electoral year in which a lot of resources have been used to ensure the security of the electoral process,” Derick told OSV News.

“The government might have not recovered sufficiently enough to still have what it takes to put the necessary resources to ensure the pope’s security,” he explained.

Leo’s first trip to Africa as pontiff has had some locations confirmed, with the of Equatorial Guinea being the latest confirmed stop. A series of recent announcements by bishops in Angola and Algeria have indicated that Leo will embark on trips to their respective countries this year.

Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algiers told journalists outside the Paul VI audience hall Jan. 8 that he discussed the possibility of a trip with the pope during the extraordinary consistory and that the visit was “on track.”

On Jan. 13, Angola was announced as another destination that Leo intends to visit this year. At a press conference in Luanda, Polish Archbishop Kryspin Witold Dubiel, apostolic nuncio to Angola, announced that the pope had accepted the invitation from Church and government officials to visit.

While Cameroon was for weeks rumoured as a possible destination, Derick told OSV News the nation’s security forces, both materially and in terms of manpower, are exhausted, compounded by ongoing instability in the two English-speaking regions, as well as Boko Haram incursions in the country’s far-northern region.

Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions have been gripped by separatist violence since 2017, when the government took a hard line following strikes by Anglophone teachers and lawyers.

The expert noted that the severe insecurity in these regions makes a papal trip “logistically and practically impossible at this time.”

He also touched on general infrastructural decay, citing poor road networks and inadequate health facilities in major cities as issues that must be addressed before Cameroon hosts the pontiff.

“You don’t certainly want the pope to move on bumpy roads, or to land on outdated airstrips,” Derick noted.

While a papal visit would certainly be good for strengthening the faiths of Cameroon’s Catholics, estimated at 38.3% of the country’s 30.1 million inhabitants, the government also views such a visit as a critical piece of diplomatic victory — one that would boost Cameroon’s battered image abroad.

The country has been the object of increasing international criticism as a result of gross human rights violations. According to Amnesty International, people critical of the regime face persecution and are threatened with restrictions on their right to freedom of movement. Journalists are intimidated by security forces.

The country’s image was further dented by the Oct. 12, 2025, presidential election. President Paul Biya, in power for 43 years, was declared the winner, extending his rule by another seven years. The main opposition leader, Issa Tchiroma, rejected the results and has since continued to claim that he is the duly elected president.

Furthermore, a prominent Cameroonian Jesuit priest and scholar has publicly urged the pontiff not to visit the West African country, warning that such a visit could be an endorsement of a regime whose legitimacy has been shattered by a recent “grave political and moral crisis.”

In an open letter addressed to the Holy Father, Fr. Ludovic Lado recalled that the latest election was “marred by massive fraud” to ensure the continued rule of 92-year-old Biya. The contested results, he argued, have triggered a painful post-electoral crisis marked by violence, deaths and severe repression.

“The dozens of victims counted were killed by bullets fired at unarmed civilians by an army that has become a militia under the control of one man,” Lado wrote in his letter to the pontiff, adding that the situation in the country is “tragically demonstrating the lack of regard for the dignity of human life in our country, especially that of the poorest.”

Lado argued that a papal visit would betray the pope’s core preference for helping the poor, and instead provide a platform for “an aging elite” — living in “comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people” — clinging to power.

He feared the trip would be instrumentalized by “illegitimate government seeking respectability.”

In a dramatic appeal, the Jesuit priest said, “the hands of the members of Paul Biya’s regime that You will be shaking during Your visit to Cameroon, like those of Herod and Pilate, are stained with the blood of poor Cameroonians, victims of political repression.”

He also highlighted the unresolved Anglophone crisis that killed at least 6,500 people over the last decade.

Instead of a pastoral visit, Lado suggested the Holy See could play a crucial role as a mediator for peace, proposing Vatican support for an initiative led by the Italian Community of Sant’Egidio to help the nation find a path out of its “historical impasse.”

A papal visit should only take place when Cameroon regains “a climate of justice, peace and reconciliation, with legitimate authorities,” he concluded.

Political analyst Derick, however, disagreed that the papal visit could be seen as an endorsement of the political power in the country, and he framed the pope’s potential mission as one of pastoral care and pacification.

“It will not be an endorsement of the present regime. It will be more of a visit to a suffering people, a visit to a category of faithful within the Roman Catholic Church that are in need of their spiritual father to come and tap them on the back and to make them understand all is well, that God has not forgotten Cameroonians,” he told OSV News.

He drew parallels to other international journeys carried out by late Pope Francis, when he visited crisis zones like Congo and the Central African Republic, noting that the pontiff historically travels to places of turmoil to bring hope and advocate for peace, not to validate political leadership.

If the Cameroon leg of the tour is finalized, Leo would become the third pontiff to visit the central African nation, following Pope St. John Paul II in August 1985 and Pope Benedict XVI in March 2009 — all under the same Cameroonian ruler.

Culled from National Catholic Reporter

Twenty-nine inmates from the Buea Central Prison in Cameroon regained their freedom Tuesday following the intervention of Bishop Michael Bibi of Buea, through the Justice and Peace Commission.

The Church achieved the feat by paying off fines for prisoners who had completed their sentences but lacked the financial means to secure their own release.

As the 29 prisoners regained their freedom, they actually burst into song.

“Our Bishop, we say thank you! Our Bishop, we say thank you!” they sang.

As the freed inmates emerged, they shared stories of relief and renewed hope. One former inmate, who identified himself as an ice cream vendor named Elake Mbua, recounted a family dispute over property that finally landed him in prison.

“I’m thanking the Roman Catholic Church for intervening for me. If not of the bishop, I don’t know for how much longer I’d remain in jail. I say thank you,” he said.

Another freed man, Clovis Fuh, who had been incarcerated for a year, simply beamed.

“Today is the happiest day in my life,” he said.

“My father [meaning Bishop Bibi} and the Catholic Church have done something that I will never ever forget in my life,” Fuh told Crux.

Bibi, accompanied by the Director of the Justice and Peace Commission, Joyce Mbong, and diocesan priests, personally oversaw the release. The bishop explained that this act of mercy is a longstanding tradition for the diocese, fueled by the generosity of priests, religious, and lay faithful.

“It has been a tradition that I, together with my priests, the religious and the Christians of the diocese … struggle to see what we can do in order to get them out of prisons,” Bibi stated.

“I’m happy today that the work that the Justice and Peace Office has carried out has made it possible for us to release these prisoners… This is the first set we are doing. We will work again and get another list,” Bibi said.

The bishop’s involvement with the Buea Central Prison extends far beyond Tuesday’s event, according to Prison Administrator, Donatus Ntemgwa. He said the release of the 29 inmates has scaled down overcrowding in the prison.

“He has also promised us to do post-detention care… since he has promised us to follow up these inmates after their release, so we are very, very happy,” the prison administrator told journalists.

However, Bibi cautioned the newly freed individuals, urging them to make a clean break from their past.

“The prison is not their home,” the bishop stated.

“They came here because they did something that was not proper. Some came here because of misjudgments … they should go and not come back, because some of them have gone and come back once, twice, thrice,” the bishop said.

To ensure they don’t return, the Justice and Peace Commission is implementing a comprehensive reintegration plan. Mbong outlined a multi-faceted approach to the social and economic reintegration of the ex-prisoners.

“As of today, we are going to get a database of those who have skills and their talents,” the commissioner told Crux.

“Some have already expressed the need to want to continue on skills training or to continue education. So we still have to look for resources to be able to support them,” she explained.

She said the commission “will maintain contact with the former inmates, assist with family reconciliation in cases where needed, and help them find productive work.”

One freed prisoner, a former hairdresser, said that she will “start from where I stopped.”

The Church officials pledged to help secure essential documents for those who lack them, such as birth certificates and national identity cards.

Mbong made a direct appeal to the public for support, given the costs involved.

“We cannot do all at a time, and I want to use this forum to appeal to those who can and have the resources to support the Justice and Peace Office in this mission of preparing these inmates and also facilitating their reintegration into society,” she said.

For the 29 prisoners who walked through the prison gate into freedom, the journey to a new life has just begun, with the Diocese of Buea pledging to walk alongside them every step of the way.

Source: Crux

Father John Berinyuy Tatah, parish priest in Babessi, who was abducted on November 15 along with his vicar in southwestern Cameroon, has been freed.

His release on December 2 came a few days after the deadline set by Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda, who had threatened to close Catholic institutions in the region if the priest was not released by November 26.

Last week, the archdiocese organized a peaceful march to demand his release.

Father John and his vicar were abducted on November 15 on their way home from Mass for the inauguration of the PAX Institute at the University of Ndop.

According to Archbishop Fuanya, the two priests were captured in Baba I (a village about 60 km from the town of Bamenda, on the Bamenda-Nkambe ring road, near the town of Babessi) by armed men claiming to be separatist fighters from Ambazonia and taken to an unknown location.

On November 18, four priests and a layman were also captured; they were supposed to negotiate the release of the two priests. The vicar, the four other priests, and the layman were released on November 20, while Father John remained in the hands of his captors.

The circumstances of the priest’s release have not been disclosed. Meanwhile, the Ambazonian rebels who had captured him posted a video on Facebook in which Father John called for dialogue to resolve the crisis in the English-speaking region.

Source: fides.org