April 23, 2026 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
TheCatholicSpirit.com
Pope Leo XIV receives the offertory gifts as he celebrates Mass at Bamenda International Airport in Cameroon April 16. OSV NEWS | SIMONE RISOLUTI, VATICAN MEDIA
Pope Leo stresses peace, care for the poor, works of mercy during Africa trip OSV News
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ope Leo XIV visited four countries across 11,000 miles in his April 13-23 apostolic journey in Africa — Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. The American pope gave speeches in French, English, Portuguese and Spanish. In one of his most ambitious and longest trips outside of the Vatican since being elected pope May 8, 2025, Pope Leo carried with him themes of peace, care for the poor and for families, interfaith dialogue and works of mercy. He visited a psychiatric hospital and was set to visit prisoners in Equatorial Guinea, after having visited the Little Sisters of the Poor in Algeria, a nursing home in Angola and an orphanage in Cameroon. Pope Leo, a member of the Augustinian order, visited the modern city of Annaba while in Algeria and the ruins of the Roman city of
Hippo, where St. Augustine was a bishop for more than 30 years. He said that visit was not only “a special blessing for me personally,” but also “symbolically significant” to “offer to the Church and the world a vision that St. Augustine offers us in terms of that search for God and the struggle to build community” and to seek unity and respect among all people despite differences. Each country the pope visited faces unique difficulties, such as Angola grappling with deep social challenges. Despite robust economic growth fueled by oil and diamond revenues, Angola is among the countries with the lowest life expectancy rates and highest infant mortality rates. Inequality and corruption remain persistent concerns in the country still healing from a decades-long civil war. The following report by Josephine Peterson of Catholic News Service details one of the pope’s many stops and his message of peace.
“The voices in the bushes.” That is the fear that defines daily life for many residents of Bamenda, in Cameroon’s troubled Anglophone region. “You don’t know where they are,” Cajetan Nfor told Catholic News Service April 16. “You don’t know how many of them there are.” A resident of Bamenda since 1964, Nfor has witnessed firsthand the rapid decline of the city he calls home. What began in 2016 as a political protest movement led by English-speaking teachers and lawyers over claims of professional and political marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority government quickly escalated into violence. Armed separatist groups emerged in the Anglophone regions, initially with some support from residents. But as time went on, the movement shifted, and the separatist groups began
terrorizing their own. Armed groups began abducting civilians, looting businesses and enforcing their control through fear. Today, residents in northwest Cameroon say they live caught between separatist fighters and government forces, both capable of violence. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2024 that more than 6,000 civilians have died at the hands of both sides after a decade of conflict. Thousands have been kidnapped, many killed, while others have been sexually assaulted, beaten and held for ransom. Among them was Sister Carine Tangiri Mangu, a Sister of St. Anne, who told Pope Leo XIV during a community meeting April 16 that she and a priest were taken “into the bush” in November 2025 and held for three days. PLEASE TURN TO POPE TRIP ON PAGE 10
OUR LADY’S TABLE 5 | ACCW GOLDEN ROSE AWARDS 6 | PRIESTS’ MINISTRY LEGACIES 7-8 OUTREACH TO ANNUNCIATION EIGHTH GRADERS 8 | BUSINESS GUILD FAIR 9 | NCEA CONVENTION RECAP 12-13