Overview
- Pope Leone XIV celebrated a mass in Douala on Friday and said humanity is hungry for peace, urging concrete acts of solidarity and forgiveness.
- In Bamenda, he warned against using God to justify military or political aims and condemned ‘warlords’ and foreign profiteers who exploit Africa’s resources.
- President Donald Trump kept up public criticism, said he can disagree with the Pope, and rejected the need for a meeting, while Vice President JD Vance invoked the ‘just war’ tradition to fault the Pope’s stance.
- The administration canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities in Miami, ending a decades-long partnership that housed unaccompanied migrant children and disrupting a key refuge service.
- The visit unfolded in Cameroon’s Anglophone region, where separatists declared a three‑day truce to allow the stop in Bamenda during a conflict that has killed and displaced many residents.