The event that was decreed by Pope Benedict XVI last year will be celebrated from October 3-5, 2013.

The Diocese of Buea has been selected by the National Episcopal Council to host festivities to mark the end of the Year of Faith in Cameroon. The event that starts today October 3, 2013, was decreed last year by the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, will bring together over 6,000 pilgrims from across the nation led by the 33 bishops that make up the Episcopal Council.

In this regard, the organising committee for the event has been put in place with preparations heightening to ensure a hitch-free celebration at the Small Soppo Cathedral, the venue for the event. As part of activities to culminate to the celebrations, the Bishop of Buea, His Lordship Immanuel Balanjo Bushu, granted a press conference on Saturday September 21, 2013 at the Bishop’s House to edify pressmen and the general public on the importance of the event. The Bishop pointed out that faith is a gift from God, adding that through faith, believers are made to unite with God.  

According to Mgr. Bushu, Jesus Christ has constituted those who have received the gift of faith into a church and when the faith is low, they are not in union with God. This, he explained, is the reason why the Church leader calls for a reunion with God. The end year of faith, Bishop Bushu went on, is intended to reawaken the faith of Christians whom he said are being taken away from God due to the technological evolution of the world. “Many new things such as great inventions have taken us away from God. We have become very circular and restless”, he remarked. The ‘End Year of Faith’ celebration is therefore a forum to renew Christians’ faith and fight against anti-Christ sentiments, the Bishop highlighted.

Activities for the event that will be chaired by the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon, Mgr. Piero Pioppo, shall include symposiums, seminars and workshops which will all focus on strengthening the faith of Christians. Among some of the guests expected  are top government officials, leaders of sister denominations like the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) as well as the Secretary General of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC), amongst others.