Who was Baba Simon, first venerable of Cameroon?
On the occasion of the pontifical trip to Africa, the name of this man, nicknamed “father of the Kirdis”, resonates with burning news. Recognized as venerable by Pope Francis on May 20, 2023, Baba Simon embodies what is most alive in the Church on this continent: a faith that frees man from his material and spiritual misery.
Born in 1906 in Batombé (Cameroon), just 43 kilometers from Marienberg where the Pallotine fathers built the country’s first Catholic church in 1890, Simon Mpeke espoused the faith of these religious people from Limburg (Cameroon was then a German protectorate before coming under French supervision after the First World War), requested and received baptism in 1914. December 8, 1935, after a brief career as a teacher and a stint at the newly created Yaoundé seminary, he became one of the first eight Cameroonians ordained priests. A founding event for a local Church that was still in its infancy.
In Tokombéré – “the place where we fight” – he arrived alone, barefoot, living in total destitution. He, the Bakoko of the South, Christian and educated, discovered marginalized peoples, fleeing Islamic conquest since the 19th century, despised by the colonial administration as well as that of the Cameroonian regime, which became independent in 1960. His approach, then considered crazy, is based on a triptych: inculturation, interreligious dialogue and human promotion.
“Jesus Christ is the man, the standing, living man, the one who is building himself. »
Long before the concept was theorized, Baba Simon marveled at the customs, languages and religious traditions of those he came to evangelize. He does not destroy ancestral sacrifices; he reads there a preparation for the Gospel. Result: even today, during the great annual offerings, the Kirdis associate his name with that of their most glorious ancestors.
At the same time, he increased the number of schools and clinics and fought against injustice and illiteracy. His conviction, hammered home with his now legendary smile: “Jesus Christ is the man, the standing, living man, the one who builds himself. » Faith, for him, is inseparable from the well, from knowledge, from respect for others.
Exhausted, he died on August 13, 1975. But his legacy does not die. The Tokombéré college, founded in 1990, bears his name.
And while Leo To the venerable Baba Simon, “the barefoot missionary”, the one who made concrete charity the highest of theologies and whom they hope will one day be canonized for all of his work…
