Cardinal Christian Tumi When 90-year-old Cardinal Christian Tumi was interrogated in captivity by armed separatists in Cameroon last week, he calmly told his captors that he had been called by God to preach only what is true.
A video published on social media November 7 revealed a conversation that took place while Cardinal Tumi was held overnight by separatist militias while traveling through Cameroon’s Northwest Region.
In the video, one of Cardinal Tumi’s captors confronted the cardinal about his calls for fighters in Cameroon to lay down their arms and then instructed him to share the separatists’ message with the public.
To this, the cardinal responded: “I will preach what is the truth with pastoral conviction and biblical conviction.”
“Nobody has the right to tell me to preach the contrary because I was called by God,” Cardinal Tumi said.
At another point in the video, the cardinal told his captors: “When I speak, I speak like a pastor and that I can never stop doing. If I stop doing that, then I will not be faithful to God, the Almighty.”
Responding to the separatists, Cardinal Tumi could be heard saying: “If you have done wrong, I will tell you that you have done wrong; if the government has done wrong, I will say that they have done wrong.”