Pope cautions Cameroonians

Press, 12 August 1985, Page 6

Pope cautions Cameroonians

NZPA-Reuter Yaounde

Pope John Paul II told Cameroonians yesterday that they risked a return to paganism because of the country’s economic advancement.

In a speech to priests, nuns and religious students soon after arriving at Yaounde, the west African State’s capital, the Pope told his listeners to lead Cameroonian leaders to Christ.

“(The Cameroonian people) can often be troubled by a technical civilisation where the sense of religion is weakened, they can also be tempted by a return to paganism,” he said.

Speaking in the newly renovated cathedral in Yaounde, the Pope repeated his support for the traditional Christian family.

Christians should “surmount the handicaps which traditional institutions or modern temptations can exert on sincerity and fidelity.” Earlier, some 10,000 wellwishers saw Cameroon’s Catholic President, Mr Paul Biya, welcome the Pope at Yaounde airport after he arrived from Abidjan, where the Pontiff had consecrated one of the world’s biggest cathedrals in the Ivory Coast capital. “For Cameroonians you are not just a head of State . . . you are the incarnation of justice, dignity and hope among men and women,” Mr Biya said. ja *

Pope John Paul said that Cameroon, which has two official languages, English and French, and 200 tribes, was “an Africa in miniature, a melting-pot of numerous races.” Cameroon’s State radio announced earlier that Mr Biya had decided to grant clemency to some detainees in the country’s jails to coincide with the Papal visit.

A brief announcement by the radio said that Mr Biya would grant “important measures of clemency in favour of certain detainees,” but gave no other details. In April, 1984, Mr Biya survived a bloody coup attempt by members of his Republican Guard, who had been chosen by his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, to ensure Presidential security.

But the Pope described the former German, French, and British colony in *his airport speech as “an island of peace.” On Friday, the Pope had his first meeting with Animists, adherents of an ancient religion that is still more widespread than Christianity in Africa. He met an Animist community when he travelled to their stronghold of Togoville, on the shores of Lake Toho, about 30km from Lome, the Togolese capital. His main purpose in going there was to visit a sanctuary of the Virgin Mary established in the centre of the Animist cult by German missionaries at the beginning, of this century.