“I am the Nuncio to the Republic of Cameroon.” Why remind the people of what they already know?
Why reach for a title when the flock is crying for truth? In any relationship — marriage, leadership, priesthood — the moment one begins to shout their title is the moment real authority has already slipped away. That is not dominance; it is disconnection.
By Rev Fr Awoh Joseph Jum, SD. For The Independentist
The rededication of St. Joseph Metropolitan Cathedral in Bamenda on November 15, 2025, was meant to be a moment of celebration, renewal, and unity. Instead, it became a revelation — not of stone and stained glass, but of the widening gap between a suffering people and a leadership that no longer hears them.
When the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea introduced Fai Yengo Francis as the personal representative of President Paul Biya, what followed was not confusion, nor rudeness, nor youthful insolence. It was clarity. A cathedral full of Christians, speaking with one voice. Loud, sustained murmurs. Mocking laughter.
A verdict. They say the voice of the people is the voice of God. On that day, God did not whisper. He murmured — unmistakably.
I was not surprised. No one who truly knows the spiritual and political climate of Cameroon should have been surprised. What shocked me was the Nuncio’s reaction. Raising his voice above the din, he declared:
“I am the Nuncio to the Republic of Cameroon.”
Why remind the people of what they already know?
Why reach for a title when the flock is crying for truth? In any relationship — marriage, leadership, priesthood — the moment one begins to shout their title is the moment real authority has already slipped away. That is not dominance; it is disconnection. But the focus is not the Nuncio’s discomfort. The focus is the people’s message.
For years, Cameroonians have murmured their frustration. For years, they have watched the Church walk carefully around injustice — condemning the powerless while offering diplomatic silence to the powerful. For years, they have been told to pray, to keep calm, to wait for peace — even as they bury their children and scrape together hope from the ashes of conflict. Their hunger is not only for food; it is for truth. Their poverty is not only economic; it is moral. Their rebellion is not against the Church; it is against the absence of courage within it.
After the dedication, some praised the cathedral’s beauty. Others criticized the timing and priorities. Both reactions are valid. Beauty lifts the human spirit toward God. Architecture inspires reverence and silence. But no cathedral — however magnificent — can camouflage spiritual inertia.
A Church that builds structures without building conscience is decorating its own emptiness.
Ironically, the Nuncio himself once said it plainly in Aguleri, Nigeria, in March 2023. His words now ring louder than they did then: “Do not ask how many buildings we have or how much power we possess. Ask how many Christians are entirely for God. Without this, crisis and decadence will come.” Crisis is here. Decadence is here. And both have arrived not because the people are rebellious, but because the shepherds have refused to listen.
The new cathedral is indeed beautiful. It should lift our hearts to God. But beauty without justice is hollow. Ceremony without conscience is noise. If we still believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God, then we must accept what God said in that cathedral. Not through prophets. Not through bishops. Not through decrees. But through the people themselves.
Their murmuring was a message:
If the Church will not stand with truth, then the Church is standing somewhere Christ never stood. If shepherds cannot hear the flock, then the flock will speak without them. If the gap between the people and their leaders continues to widen, then the cathedrals we build today will echo with emptiness tomorrow. A Church that refuses to listen to the cries of its people will soon have no people left to preach to.
Rev Fr Awoh Joseph Jum,
