Pope Benedict XVI will meet representatives of Cameroon’s Muslim minority today shortly before celebrating Mass for thousands of faithful from Africa’s expanding Catholic flock in the capital’s football stadium.
The morning meeting with Muslim representatives at the Apostolic Nunciature, where Benedict has been lodging on his first African pilgrimage as pope, is closed to the public.
The Pope is expected to greet the participants with a brief speech.
Muslims make up some 22 per cent of Cameroon's population; Roman Catholics account for 27 per cent of the West African nation's people. Animists account for some 27 per cent, while Protestants make up 18 per cent.
Christians and Muslims largely coexist without problems in Cameroon.
Benedict, as did his predecessor John Paul, has set aside time in his various foreign pilgrimages to meet with, or at least greet, representatives from various Christian communities as well as non-Christians.
Yaounde's Amadou Ahidjo stadium holds 40,000 people.
Benedict's open-air Mass will be his first occasion as pope to be among a great crowd of faithful on the continent, which is witnessing the church's biggest growth.
His homily is expected to touch on African issues. Before the visit, Benedict said he was travelling in Africa as a pilgrimage of peace, in hopes of inspiring faithful to work for social justice and fight the hunger and disease which affliction millions on the continent.
Since stepping off the papal plane on Tuesday, attention to Benedict's pilgrimage has been largely focused on the Vatican's refusal to advocate condoms as a way to help stop the spread of AIDS, which is pandemic in Africa.
Yesterday, France and Germany sharply criticised Benedict's declaration aboard the papal plane that distributing condoms "increases" the Aids problem. The French foreign ministry said the statement could "endanger public health policies and the imperative to protect human life".
Two German ministers said on Benedict's first full day as pope in Africa, a continent ravaged by HIV, that it was irresponsible to reject condoms. The United Nations agency charged with fighting Aids also spoke out in favour of condom use.
Benedict told reporters on his flight to Cameroon that a responsible and moral attitude towards sex would help fight the disease, not the distribution of condoms.
Yesterday Benedict met Cameroon's President Paul Biya, one of Africa's longest-ruling strongmen. Biya has been in power since 1982 and was recently accused by Amnesty International of seeking to crush political opposition.
No details of the meeting at the presidential palace were given. Local churchmen have spoken out against human rights abuses and the newspaper Le Jour carried a front-page interview with Cameroon cardinal Christian Tumi asking Biya not to run again in 2011.
Reuters