Pope Leo XIV delivered a forceful appeal for peace and condemned what he described as “a handful of tyrants” who are ravaging the world, in a speech on Thursday during a tour of Africa.
Leo’s speech, delivered in northwestern Cameroon, came days after President Donald Trump sharply criticized the first U.S.-born pontiff in an online screed and posted an apparently AI-generated image that appeared to depict himself as Jesus.
Leo did not specifically name Trump during his comments in Cameroon, which he was visiting as part of a 10-day tour.
During the speech, he sharply condemned those “who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” Leo was speaking in Bamenda, a city in the northwestern part of the country that is considered the center of the country’s long-running separatist movement.
“The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy,” Leo said, adding that they do not acknowledge that it often takes more than “a lifetime” to rebuild. “They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing, on devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found.”
Echoing comments made by his predecessor Pope Francis, who had sharply condemned the legacy of colonialism in Africa, Leo told Cameroonians that many of the same people who rob “your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons,” creating a cycle of violence.
He celebrated the efforts of religious leaders in Bamenda to bring peace to the region. In northwest Cameroon, English-speaking separatists have declared a breakaway state called Ambazonia after what they say is decades of repression by the Francophone-dominated Cameroonian government. In what is seen as a breakthrough, the rebel leadership has declared a halt in fighting for the papal trip, if not a formal ceasefire.
Leo said that those who want to bring peace in Cameroon should be a model for the world.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” he said, “yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.”