More than a million people are expected to attend the mass in Douala, one of central Africa’s largest ports, where the Cameroonian authorities bloodily repressed protests against the disputed re-election of longtime President Paul Biya six months ago.
Thousands of faithful were already streaming into the city Thursday night to claim their spots on the esplanade outside the stadium where the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics will deliver mass.
The pope’s landmark 11-day tour of Africa has seen him abandon his previous restraint to deliver impassioned pleas for world peace — and tussle with fellow American Trump, after the US president lashed out at him for calling for an end to the war in the Middle East.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” Leo said on Thursday in a solemn speech at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in the city of Bamenda in northwestern Cameroon, the epicentre of a nearly decade-long separatist insurgency that has killed thousands of people.
Trump later said the pope could say what he liked, but needed to understand the realities of a “nasty world”.
Far from the Trump spat, Leo has been greeted by adoring, singing-and-dancing crowds wherever he goes in Cameroon.
Douala’s 50,000-seater Japoma Stadium is expected to be packed for his mass at 11am, before a visit to the Saint Paul’s Catholic hospital.
But some Cameroonian Catholics had feared that Leo’s visit could help Biya, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1982, burnish his image.
Douala was among the cities to see a violent crackdown on demonstrations against the re-election in October of a man who at 93 years of age is already the world’s oldest head of state.
Witnesses have reported that the security forces fired live rounds into the crowds. The authorities have acknowledged dozens of deaths, without giving a precise toll.
Without mentioning Trump or Biya by name, Leo has delivered unusually pointed speeches across his African tour — ignoring Catholic US Vice President JD Vance’s call to “stick to matters of morality”.
“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” Leo said in Bamenda.
In a mass on Thursday, he also criticised “those who, in the name of profit, continue to lay their hands on the African continent to exploit and plunder it”.
Cameroon is rich in natural resources such as oil, timber, cocoa, coffee and minerals, which have attracted both foreign firms and local elites for decades.
After arriving in the country on Wednesday, the pope urged Cameroon’s leaders to root out corruption and abuses carried out in the name of order — within Biya’s earshot.
“Security is a priority, but it must always be exercised with respect for human rights,” the pope told officials in the capital Yaounde.
Ahead of the visit, the Archbishop of Douala, Samuel Kleda — one of the foremost critics of Biya within the Cameroonian clergy — voiced hope that the pontiff’s visit would help resolve the country’s issues.
“Our country has gone through many crises; some crises are still ongoing. The fruit we must draw from this visit is to commit ourselves as architects of peace,” Kleda said.
The Catholic Church plays an important social role in Cameroon, where more than a third of the population of 30 million people are Catholic.
Before Cameroon, Leo headed to Muslim-majority Algeria for a visit marred by two suicide bombings.
He leaves Cameroon for Angola on Saturday, before wrapping up his whirlwind 18,000-kilometre (11,200-mile) tour in Equatorial Guinea.