In the first part of our reflection on the topic of what difference Jesus makes that we published this past Easter, we ended on the position that the Temptations constitute, at their innermost core, a theological debate between Satan and Jesus. The hectic nature of my schedule did not allow for the completion of this reflection until now. I apologize to my readers for this belatedness. Now, let us return to where we break off this past Easter on this topic, namely, the challenge for Jesus to prove his identity as the Son of God. It is likewise important to keep the overarching question in view, that is, Jesus’ identity in the light  of the difference that Jesus makes in today’s world. In effect, if Jesus is who he claims to be, if Jesus is authentic – if you are the Son of God – as Satan threw at him, then there must be a difference in the world with the coming of Jesus. Within the context of the Temptations, Jesus does not take the bait put forth by Satan. He refuses to turn stones into bread, or to fall from the lofty heights of the Temple pinnacle. The Cardinal Inquisitor has it right in The Grand Inquisitor when he laments before Jesus: You refused the offer of the Mighty Spirit because you wanted men and women to follow you out of freedom! In other words, succumbing to the Temptations would have been an easier and faster part for Jesus to accomplish his mission. But the fastest and easiest do not always translate into the truly enduring, beautiful and good.

To Ratzinger, the Temptations are not only Christological, that is, pertaining only to the person of Christ. They likewise have an inherent Ecclesiological character, in that the Church down the ages has often faced the challenge to prove itself, to prove its credibility. If you are the Church of Christ, then demonstrate it in a more convincing manner. If you are the Church of Christ, then why is there so much sin and evil in your members? Why couldn’t Christ make you as perfect as he Jesus is? And this temptation to prove one’s identity and authenticity can be very overwhelming even for the priest of today, with all the media hype. In my own life as a Christian and as a priest, I am learning, with every passing day, the wisdom in Jesus’ refusal to take the bait. I am learning that the most meaningful response to the challenge to prove one’s identity and authenticity is to create time for more prayer before God, the all-knowing One. In prayer, the priest and the Christian feels the Lord’s closeness and support, and if my own limited experience in the spiritual life is anything to go by, there is really no substitute for prayer in the life of a priest and a Christian.

Fr Maurice with Gerhard Cardinal Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Custodian of Ratzinger’s Theological Legacy (Meeting at Vatican City)

When one enters into an Ignatian contemplation of the Temptations of Jesus, one can discern, overtime, that the issue of the Temptations boils down to the question about the fulfillment of the human heart. What really satisfies the human heart? Wealth (bread), Power (Temple Pinnacle/the cities of the world)? I believe that to understand Jesus’ resistance to the seductive offers of Satan provides the definitive response to the central question of the difference that Jesus makes in our lives today. And a proper understanding of this question possesses a historical pedigree to it, namely, engaging Jesus’ identity and uniqueness from the living faith of Israel, specifically with the figure and mission of Moses.

With Moses at the helm, Israel left Egypt for the promised land. What shaped this journey in large measure was the sense of hope, for a promised land that would meet the aspirations and yearnings of Israel. The particular issues and demands met by manna and other nutritional and safety needs embodied the need for hope in an otherwise hopeless context. The question of difference Jesus makes appears in an antecedent format at this point: What difference does the God of Israel make, to the people of Israel? In a sense, the yearnings of Israel’s heart is captured in the request Moses makes to Yahweh: Show me your face. Some translations render  it as show me your glory (Exodus 33:18). God strikes a compromise with Moses that from the angle of a retrospective reading, lays the foundation for the difference that the coming of Christ makes in history. Moses will still have the privilege and joy of encountering, somewhat, the beatific vision while still on this side of human existence, that is, the Back of God, but no more, for the human being cannot see the face of God and live (Exodus 33:20). In the event of Moses, the light of faith (lumen fidei) and the light of glory (lumen gloriae) converge, a rarity, because the light of faith is meant to accompany us in this earthly life, while the light of glory is what enables us to see God in the next life. As I think further about this mysterious text of Exodus 33, this interpretation already much present especially in Eastern Theology occurs to me: the light of faith could correspond to the Back of God, and the light of glory, the Face of God, to the extent that only in followership/discipleship captured in the image of the back, would one eventually arrive at the longing that moves or drives the human heart, captured in the image of the face. From this incident of Moses, there emerged, in the consciousness of Israel’s faith and later on taken up in Christian mysticism, the theology of the Face of God as the fulfilment of the greatest longing of the human heart, as we see in the lives of the saints and Doctors of the Church.

Let’s remain a little bit more with the figure of Moses and the images of the Back and Face of God. In his The Life of Moses, St. Gregory of Nyssa offers a truly moving Christological  reading of this mystical event as narrated in the Book of Deuteronomy. Gregory asks:

What is his back which God promised to Moses when he asked to see him face-to-face? (…) But when the Lord who spoke to Moses came to fulfill his own law, he likewise gave a clear explanation to his disciples, laying bare the meaning of what had previously been said in a figure when he said, ‘if anyone wants to be a follower of mine.’ And to the one asking about eternal life he proposed the same thing, for he said, ‘Come, follow me’ (18:22). Now, he who follows sees the back. So, Moses, who eagerly seeks to behold God, is now taught how he can behold him: to follow God where ever he might lead is to behold God. His passing by signifies his guiding the one who follows, for someone who does not know the way cannot complete his journey safely in any other way than by following behind his guide. HE who leads, then, by his guidance shows the way to the one following. He who follows will not turn aside from the right way if he always keeps the back of his leader in view. (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 106 & 110.

Some spiritual insights from this engagement between Moses and God:

Firstly, as Aquinas beautifully expresses it – and as many Christians likewise get a glimpse of it particularly during moments of prayer, – only God can satisfy the human heart – Nil Nisi Te Domine. Augustine had said it best centuries before Aquinas: You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until it rest in Thee.

Secondly, notwithstanding all the material blessings that come our way in this life, there remains that longing that nothing corporeal is capable of filling. There is a void, what the French philosopher Maurice Blondel trenchantly characterizes as the wedge between the willed will and the willing will, in his philosophy of action.

Thirdly, because this quest for God is in the DNA of the human being, we are somewhat impatient for the beatific vision, for what Aquinas calls the light of glory. Even in this life, which is guided by the light of faith, we want to have the fullness that the light of glory brings with it. And this is quite understandable, for who wants to live with half measures?

But even more, we cannot deny that our brokenness and sinfulness, what Blaise Pascal calls our wretchedness, is likewise a motivation for our desire for the fullness that comes with the light of glory, the Face of God. I love Dante’s DivineComedy precisely because sin is not presented in a despairing form, but as a starting point for the journey to the Face of God, as the soul moves from the Inferno through the Purgatorio and finally, Paradiso. Too often, Christians get chained in the melancholy of their sinful past and present, forgetting to realize that our sins, my own sins as Maurice, is really the raw material that God uses to place me on the journey towards Him.

And this is the context in which Jesus Christ enters the scene, making all the difference, as particularly captured in the dual dynamisms of Deuteronomy 18 and Matthew 17. (To be continued…)

By Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

A leading Cameroonian priest has warned that the country is “dangerously dancing toward self-destruction,” blasting a series of corruption scandals and acts of violence that have marred the west African nation.

“These are very uncomfortable atrocities that have happened in our midst, and which sometimes, we rather tacitly” accept them through silence, said Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy, Director of Communications at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Cameroon.

In one of his weekly programs, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” broadcast this week, Mbuy catalogued several incidents that have rocked Cameroon of late.

He began with the murder of journalist Martinez Zogo, who was kidnapped January 17, and whose mutilated body was found near the capital Yaoundé five days later. Zogo was a constant voice of criticism against government corruption.

Mbuy also discussed scandals surrounding the construction of a Yaoundé-Douala motorway. The first 60 kilometers of the highway have now cost in excess of $1 billion, with much of that amount believed to have been stolen by corrupt officials.

COVID-19 funds that were also allegedly stolen, Mbuy mentioned. Several government officials, including the Prime Minister Joseph Ngute, have been questioned about the theft of about $300 million allocated for the fight against COVID, but so far, no one has been arrested in connection with the investigation.

The same goes with the theft of funds allocated for the construction of sports stadiums in the country. Recently, another corruption scandal was unraveled at the country’s finance ministry in which a cluster of private individuals and government entities had benefited from ‘miscellaneous expenses’ contained in line items in the state budget to the tune of about $9 billion between 2010 and 2021.

Mbuy lauded the oldest Member of Cameroon’s National Assembly, Koa Mfegue Laurentine Mbede, who recently warned that “all this must stop, or our beautiful and dear fatherland will be transformed into a land of scandals.”

“Perhaps the honorable lady was truly referring to the shock and feelings of betrayal suffered by those who are surprised and disgusted to learn of the complicity of their leaders in wrong-doing,” the priest said.

A nation of roughly 30 million, Cameroon is roughly half Christian, with Catholics making up the largest single religious group in the country.

Mbuy said it’s critical for Cameroonians to speak out in the face of scandal and corruption, because “One who keeps quiet instead of unveiling evil that is going on consents to such evil.”

He said although God fashioned man in his image, he also respects man’s freedom to freely choose between good and evil, and this could partly explain the preponderance of scandals in society today.

“Each and every baptized Christian is called upon to evangelize and bring the good news to the poor, the lame, and the blind, to bring liberty to captives and to set the down-trodden free,” Mbuy said.

“The Church, as a teacher, is called to investigate, to find out, to teach and to defend the truth. The Church can never at any time stand on what is evil.”

Mbuy said the need to build a moral society void of scandals arises out of the theological definition of scandal as “moral outrage.”

In other words, “a word or an action which leads to the spiritual ruin of another person…The problem with scandal is not with the person committing even the scandal, it’s already bad enough that he commits. The problem with scandal is that it induces others to sin. It is because of others that scandals become worrisome,” Mbuy said.

He called on Church leaders to be the moral compass of society, and notwithstanding their human weaknesses, “there is a certain amount of discretion that each church leader must possess and which society has a right to expect from each of them. The same applies to those in public service, called to be servants of the people in their administration and political choices.”

He said a few moral principles are necessary to handle the many scandals in Cameroonian society today.

“First, public scandals must be handled and resolved publicly, while private scandals are to be handled privately. Second, there is absolute necessity to make amends, repair or restitution in cases of public scandals. Third, public scandals deserve sanctions to act as deterrents so that others may not follow the bad example. Since a scandal is a moral poisoning of the society, each deserves to be handled with absolute cold headedness and skill, ensuring that the impression is not given that we condone evil. Evil is to be fought at all costs and with the utmost ferociousness.”

Mbuy expressed regret that society has been besieged by “such a nauseating secularism and Marxist materialism that we tend to act with shocking levity of mind over issues which would otherwise frighten anyone with a disciplined mind.”

“If our society is dangerously dancing towards self-destruction, part of the central reason lies in our insensitivity towards what is wrong and inadmissible,” he said.

“For people who still think about the future and those coming after, there is every reason to continue to stand on the side of good against evil, upholding integrity, rather than give in to licentiousness, but apparently, the beautiful ones are not yet born, or the gods must be crazy,” he said.

Culled from Crux

May 13, 2023, Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, was truly a historic day in the life of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, USA, as His Eminence, Sean Patrick Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap., ordained the first Cameroonian in the person of the Rev. John Tanyi, as transitional deacon for the Archdiocese of Boston. In his homily at the Holy Cathedral of Boston that was filled to capacity especially by the Cameroonian crowd from all over Massachusetts and beyond that came to witness one of their own become a Catholic clergyman, Cardinal Sean paid glowing tribute to the Church in Africa as the most vibrant and growing part of the global Church. Rev. Tanyi’s mother, Mama Angela Bikele Tanyi, had travelled from Tiko, Cameroon, to be present for this history-making event. Other family members likewise travelled from Cameroon, Europe, Canada and other parts of the US, to be present.

Rev. John Tanyi, the Cardinal said, is an embodiment of the vibrant presence of African Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston. The congregation burst into a sustained applause when the Cardinal reference the vibrant Church in Africa. It was a very moving scene when Rev. Tanyi knelt before Cardinal O’Malley and placing his hands in the hands of the Cardinal, promised obedience to him and his successors. This was preceded by Rev. Tanyi lying prostrate on the Cathedral floor, during which the saints of God, including St. John Paul II and the Uganda Martyrs – both dear to Rev. Tanyi, were invoked to come to the aid of Rev. Tanyi and the others being ordained. Another very moving sight for the Cameroonians present was witnessing Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai vesting Rev. John Tanyi in the vestments of the deacon.

The ordination ceremony was followed by a Thanksgiving Mass and Reception that same Saturday evening at the Ste Anne Parish, Salem MA. Rev. John Tanyi delivered his First Homily as a Deacon at the Mass, in which he paid tribute to his family as his first house of formation. His has been a long road to the priesthood. In Rev. Tanyi’s own words:

“I was born into a large family in the small coastal town of Tiko in Anglophone Cameroon, Central Africa. I was raised in a traditional Catholic family, as my parents were devout Catholics. Papa was a headmaster in Catholic schools for close to fifty years. Mama was a laboratory technician. Attending Mass daily was a given. Mama woke us up at 5am for morning devotion. We would then walk forty-five minutes, praying the rosary, in the wee hours of the morning for Mass. We prayed together before going to bed and mama never got tired of her mantra, “A family that prays together stays together.”

 My family was my first seminary since the values and virtues I uphold today originated from that domestic Church. My early attraction to the priesthood stemmed from seeing priests in white and black cassocks in the parish and at school. Mama said at the age of seven, I said to her “One day you will call me Rev. John Tanyi.” Even though we weren’t rich, my parents made tremendous sacrifices to send me to St. Joseph’s College Sasse, one of the elite schools in Anglophone Cameroon, established by the Mill Hill Missionary Society in 1939.

In 2002, I joined the Mill Hill Missionary Society for formation to the missionary priesthood. After a year of basic formation in Cameroon, I was sent to Uganda for philosophical studies in 2003. In 2006, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi. After first cycle formation, I was sent to the coastal region of Kenya for a two-year Missionary Experience Program (MEP). I left the Mill Hill Missionary Society upon completion of the MEP in 2008. After years of studies, I taught politics, international relations, and peace studies at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and Mount Kenya University, Nairobi (2013-2018). The academic interactions I had with students are priceless. For my sabbatical in 2018, I enrolled for a Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry in Boston College, USA. I graduated with an MA in Theology and Ministry in 2020.

For the last fifteen years, I have been writing and talking about the faith of the Catholic Church. I thought I would serve God through my writings and teaching. But God works in mysterious and strange ways. Since childhood, my desire of becoming a priest has never been quenched. In February 2020, I attended a vocation retreat at Pope Saint John XXIII Seminary. I was touched by Cardinal Seán O’Malley’s perceptive remark that Jesus Christ called second career men for apostles. It was at that point that I decided to return to the seminary. I was admitted into the seminary in 2020 for the Archdiocese of Boston. It wasn’t an entirely easy decision considering the fruitful time I had as a university lecturer.

It has been a wonderful time of formation at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary. The faculty, fellow seminarians, and people of God have made my desire for the priesthood grow even more. I am about to be ordained to the Transitional Diaconate for the Archdiocese of Boston. I remember with gratitude some great missionaries from the United States who evangelized us in Africa; Fr Jim Kelly, C.S.C., Russell McDougall, C.S.C., Fr. Peter Major, MHM, and Fr. Robert White, SJ. The tide has seemingly turned, as the evangelizers are now becoming the evangelized. The sons and daughters from mission territories like Cameroon are now taking the Gospel to established Christian lands. It will be a great honor for me to serve as a priest of the historic See of Boston. 

Pope Saint John Paul the Great has been one of the great influences in my discernment to the priesthood. He was a priest par excellence and my study and writing of him has motivated me to follow in his footsteps to the Lord’s altar. More personally, Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai played a major role in my return to the seminary. His love of Christ and the Church has made a big impact on me. I also cannot overemphasize the impact of the great Irish missionary to Africa, Fr. Anthony Murphy, MHM, on my vocation life. Fr. Murphy served the Church in Africa for over forty years. He was the pastor of my former home parish in Cameroon. On the day I reported to the seminary in Boston in 2020, Fr. Murphy described my vocation story, “John, this is very good news indeed, and I’m delighted for you. You have been circling around your vocation for a long time. You remind me of Francis Thompson’s famous poem, ‘The Hound of Heaven’. Jesus is the ‘hound’: patiently following his chosen one till the latter finally surrenders.  Please God all will go well for you now.” I am just about to surrender, in a couple of days, when I will prostrate myself on God’s altar.”

The Cameroon Community of Boston and Ste Anne Parish under the leadership of Dr. Hilary Aroke and Dr. Judith Fokum organized a grand reception following the Thanksgiving Mass at Ste Anne Parish. The Sasse Old Boys spiced the reception, feeling very proud that a SOBAN has cut the ribbon as the First Cameroonian to become a cleric for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. The CWA Mamas lived up to their reputation of delivering a great Cameroon cuisine for all present. God willing, and as we continue to pray, next year, Rev. John Tanyi will become a priest for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. His ordination motto is taken from the words of St. John Paul II: “When a man says YES to the Lord, his YES is forever”. Let is keep Rev. Tanyi in our prayers, that he will continue to say YES to the Lord like his great mentor, St John Paul the Great.

Bertrand Etukeni Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord US Bureau Chief

48th Plenary Assembly: 16-22 April 2023

Archbishops and Bishops of Cameroon,

The Secretary General NECC,

Reverend Fathers and Lay collaborators at NECC,

Dear Journalists, men and women of the Media,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. “The Lord is Risen, Alleluia – Yes, He is truly Risen Alleluia1”.  It is with this Easter refrain that I would like to welcome all the Archbishops and Bishops of Cameroon and their collaborators who have gathered here in the National Episcopal Center, for the 48th Plenary Session of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon. I would equally like to welcome each one of you here present, as well as greet all Civil, Military, Traditional, Political and Religious authorities wherever they are at the moment – a very Happy Easter to you all. The first words of the Risen Lord to his Apostles were: “Peace be with you”. This greeting is very relevant for all of us in present-day Cameroon. So, as we begin this Plenary Assembly of the Bishops, I would like to greet the whole of Cameroon with the same  words of the Risen Christ: “Peace be with you”.

2. After forty days of fasting and abstinence, we celebrated in our various dioceses one of the most important events in our religious and spiritual life: the Solemnity of Easter, a symbol of how suffering leads to rebirth. The Resurrection of Christ is of particular interest to us because at Easter, the movement from death to life, engages each of us in a very personal manner. We who are gathered here on this day after the Divine Mercy Sunday, know for certain that our destiny and our life, would have had no meaning without the Resurrection of Christ. This is both crucial and central to our history and our journey towards God. 

3.Like the Apostles on the day after Easter, we have to proclaim Christ victorious over death, to our society marked by various sufferings – socio-political crises, agricultural difficulties, the lack of farm to market roads, repeated killings, the Covid-19 pandemic, high cost of living and other social injustices, to name just a few. In this kind of atmosphere, we must continue to bear witness to our faith in a world that seems to have lost its bearings and which now gives way to all kinds of abuses.

Albeit, our ongoing efforts for the return of peace in our country have not been in vain, because, despite the continuous threats from Boko Haram in the North and the prevailing insecurity in the North West and South West Regions, we do not give up, instead we ask Christ the Risen One to shower us with His peace. Thanks be to God, relative calm is returning to the North West and South West Regions, some businesses are reopening and many children are going back to school. This is a great sign of hope, but the situation of insecurity still remains very preoccupying.

4. In the recent months, we have been very saddened by the various extra-judicial killings that have been taking place in our society, top among which was the murder of the Journalist, Martinez Zogo, in Yaoundé. The bishops of Cameroon together with the Universal Catholic Church have always called on all peoples to respect human life, which is a gift from God from the moment of conception to its natural death. To kill someone is a sin against the 5th Commandment of the Decalogue and this commandment clearly states: “Thou shall not kill”. It is our prayer and hope that the real killers of fellow citizens will be clearly identified and brought to book according to the laws of our country. We make a very strong appeal here to all Cameroonians, to stop killing one another. We are all brothers and sisters of the same Fatherland, and children of the same God who is Father to us all.

5. During this 48th Plenary Assembly, we will, as we are accustomed to, give priority to listening to reports from the 14 commissions which represent the daily life of our Conference. This will give us the opportunity to find solutions to some important points which directly affect the future of our Conference as well as concretely revisit issues which were discussed during the seminars in Obala, Bafang, Ngaoundéré and Ebolowa.

6. We have to rewrite together, as it were, the pages which give answers to the questions we have been asking ourselves in recent years: “What kind of Episcopal Conference do we want? We are all called to work together to build this house more solidly. And to achieve this, each of us must move from “I” to “we”; from just thinking about “my diocese” to thinking about “our conference.” We are doing everything possible to improve both the living conditions of the priests who are resident here, as well as the working conditions of the commissions. We are happy to note that the  CoSMO Project  which was presented to us in Ebolowa,  has already taken off  as an outreach of our Conference. Its implementation in some target dioceses will gradually enable us to reach all the others for the good of vulnerable children in our country.

Last year, we asked the Episcopal Commission for Communication to take over from the Archdiocese of Douala, both the production and distribution of our national newspaper “L’Effort Camerounais.”  All of us are certainly glad to see the current 16-page Newspaper in colour and in its 5th publication already. While we render sincere thanks to the Archdiocese of Douala which kept the flame of this historic Newspaper burning, we encourage our Communication Commission to keep up the good work they have begun and to ensure that the paper regains its original impact and even more. 

7. After one year of our mandate in office as President of the National Episcopal Conference, we are still very committed to the construction and transformation of Marienberg in the Diocese of Edea, into a National Pilgrimage Centre. Our people need to pray; our country needs prayers and we have to look up to the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the Comforter of the Afflicted, Mirror of Justice, Help of Christians and Queen of Peace, to intercede for us.

8.May the same Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles and Special Patroness of Cameroon, intercede for us so that we can achieve our common objectives and worthily announce the Good News of the  Risen Lord to all creation. It is with this urgent invocation then that I now declare open, the 48th Plenary Assembly of the Bishops of Cameroon.

Done in Mvolye, Yaoundé, this Tuesday 18 April 2023

+Andrew NKEA,

Archbishop of Bamenda,

President of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon