World needs Pope's 'message of peace,' says Cameroon president

Yaoundé, Cameroon - Cameroon President Paul Biya said Wednesday that "the world needs the message of peace" brought by Pope Leo XIV, in a speech in front of the pontiff on his first day of a visit to the country.

The pope's four-nation African tour began amid remarks by US President Donald Trump that he was "not a big fan" of Leo after the US-born pontiff called for peace in the Middle East.

"The world needs the message of peace, justice, tolerance, forgiveness, and love that you bear," the 93-year-old Cameroonian president, who has been in power since 1982, said in one of his rare public appearances.

Without explicitly mentioning Trump or the war with Iran, Biya noted that Leo's "apostolic journey to Cameroon is taking place in an especially difficult international context".

As the US-Israeli war with Iran has dragged on, the US-born pontiff has become more and more vocal in calling for peace, branding Trump's threat in early April to annihilate civilisation in Iran as "unacceptable".

In turn, the US President has taken to social media to lambast the pope, who has also criticised the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown and the abduction of Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro.

In a post on Sunday, Trump called the pontiff "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy," suggesting that Leo was elected pope in May 2025 only because he was American and a possible bridge to his administration.

Besides Trump, US Vice President JD Vance -- himself a Catholic -- has also waded in, urging the Vatican to "stick to matters of morality... and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy". — Agence France-Presse