Pope Leo XIV is set to land in Cameroon Wednesday, kicking off the second leg of his landmark African tour that has already been marked by unexpected tensions: verbal attacks from former U.S. President Donald Trump and twin suicide bombings during his opening stop in Algeria.
The 70-year-old pontiff’s four-day schedule in the majority French-speaking central African nation opens with a private audience with 92-year-old Cameroonian President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest sitting head of state who has held uninterrupted power since 1982 and is currently serving his eighth consecutive term. The 3:20 pm (1420 GMT) closed-door meeting has already split the country’s Catholic community, which makes up roughly one-third of Cameroon’s population.
Local clergy have raised urgent concerns that the meeting will provide a public relations boost to Biya’s administration, just six months after security forces violently cracked down on mass protests sparked by disputed results of the country’s presidential election.
On Thursday, following his meeting with Biya, the Pope will travel under heavy security to Bamenda, the heart of Cameroon’s long-running Anglophone separatist insurgency. There, he will lead a prayer service for peace before a gathering of 20,000 worshippers, fulfilling the core mission of his Cameroon visit: calling for an end to nearly a decade of armed conflict.
The roots of what is known as the Anglophone Crisis stretch back to the 1970s, when the former French and British-administered regions of Cameroon formally unified. The country’s English-speaking minority, concentrated in the northwest and southwest regions, quickly raised alarms about the erosion of their unique legal institutions and cultural identity. A deadly government crackdown on peaceful Anglophone protests in 2016 escalated into full-scale armed conflict between separatist fighters and Cameroonian government forces, a dispute that remains unresolved to this day. By 2024, human rights non-governmental organizations estimate the violence has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Leo launched his first ever international papal tour in Algeria on Monday, where he paid homage to Saint Augustine, one of Christianity’s most influential theologians, at his birthplace and celebrated mass at a historic basilica that draws 18,000 interfaith pilgrims annually, including Muslim and Jewish worshippers. During the service, he urged Algeria’s small Christian community to “bear witness to the Gospel through simple gestures, genuine relationships and a dialogue lived out day by day.”
His trip to Algeria was overshadowed by twin suicide bombings in the city of Blida. While Algerian authorities have not yet issued an official statement, a well-placed government source confirmed the attacks, noting investigators do not currently believe the bombings were connected to the Pope’s visit to the majority-Muslim country. No fatalities have been reported beyond the two bombers themselves.
Even before the tour began, the pontiff’s trip faced unplanned controversy after Donald Trump launched a verbal attack against him, saying he was “not a big fan” of the pope after Leo called for renewed peace efforts in the Middle East. U.S. Vice President JD Vance doubled down on the criticism during an appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia on Tuesday, arguing the Vatican should “stick to matters of morality… and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Vance added: “It’s important, in the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Leo dismissed the criticisms outright while speaking to reporters aboard the papal plane en route to Cameroon. Citing the biblical verse “Blessed are the peacemakers,” the pontiff said: “I have no fear, neither of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel.”
This visit marks the fourth papal trip to Cameroon, a diverse multi-religious nation often called “Africa in miniature” for its wide range of ethnic and linguistic groups. Streets in the capital Yaoundé have already been lined with welcoming banners and Vatican flags in anticipation of the Pope’s arrival. On Friday, Leo will celebrate open-air mass for hundreds of thousands of worshippers at a stadium in Cameroon’s economic hub Douala, before departing for Angola on Saturday to conclude the third leg of his African tour.