First Synod Offers Roadmap for Missionary Renewal in Cameroon’s Buea Catholic Diocese

The final document sets out pastoral priorities intended to strengthen communion, promote responsible stewardship and foster missionary discipleship. It also calls for greater shared responsibility and participation in the exercise of authority in the Church.

Bishop Bibi, who began his Episcopal Ministry in March 2017 as Auxiliary Bishop of Cameroon’s Bamenda Archdiocese, cautioned that structures alone cannot bring about the renewal envisioned in the document.

“Authentic ecclesial renewal always begins with holiness,” the Local Ordinary of Buea since his installation in February 2021 said.

He urged the Clergy, women and men Religious, Seminarians, Catechists, pastoral workers and other lay faithful to study the final document and use it as a guide for their common mission.

The success of the synod, he said, would depend on the willingness of the people of God in Buea to embrace the conversion, humility and fidelity required to implement its recommendations.

Bishop Bibi called for the recommendations to be put into practice so that the Diocese could become increasingly “missionary and evangelizing.”

Referring to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21, “that they may all be one so that the world may believe,” the Cameroonian Catholic Bishop linked communion in the Church to the credibility of its evangelizing mission.

“When we walk together in Christ, we become credible witnesses of the Gospel and more effective instruments of God’s saving love,” he said.

Entrusting the implementation of the synod’s recommendations to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom he described as “Queen of Heaven, star of the new evangelization and principal patroness of Cameroon,” Bishop Bibi prayed for the continued guidance of the Holy Spirit upon the Diocese.

He expressed the hope that, united in faith and charity, the faithful would “proclaim Christ with renewed courage to every generation.”