Second Local Ordinary of Cameroon’s Mbalmayo Dies at 86, Eulogized as Tireless Pastor Who “worked for evangelization”

Yaounde, 08 September, 2025 / 8:08 PM

Bishop Adalbert Ndzana, the second Catholic Bishop of Mbalmayo Diocese in Cameroon, has passed on in Yaounde after an illness. He was aged 86.

Bishop Ndzana died in the early hours of Sunday, September 7 at a hospital in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital city, the Local Ordinary of Mbalmayo Diocese, Bishop Joseph-Marie Ndi-Okalla, announced in a statement.

“I extend my sincere condolences to the biological family of our dear Father Bishop,” Bishop Ndi-Okalla says in the September 7 statement shared with ACI Africa.

He adds, “Bishop Adalbert Ndzana passed away on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (September 8), to whom he had a deep devotion.”

“We entrust him to her loving intercession and recommend to all the People of God prayers, and to the priests, Masses for the eternal rest of his soul in God,” the Cameroonian Catholic Bishop implores.

Born in July 1939 in Zoatoubsi in the Catholic Diocese of Obala, Bishop Ndzana was ordained a Priest in August 1969. 

He was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Mbalmayo in November 1984, and succeeded the late Bishop Paul Etoga as the Local Ordinary of Mbalmayo in March 1987.

Bishop Ndzana retired in December 2016 at the age of 77.

In his September 7 message, Bishop Ndi-Okalla describes his predecessor as a tireless pastor.

“For 30 years, tirelessly, Bishop Adalbert worked for evangelization in the Diocese of Mbalmayo,” the Catholic Church leader says, adding that the late Bishop’s pastoral ministry “was marked by the education of the faith and the promotion of integral human development.”

“He committed himself wholeheartedly to works of youth education and healthcare,” Bishop Ndi-Okalla says in his September 7 statement.

He reflects on the late Bishop Ndzana’s episcopal motto, Et veritas liberavit vos (And the truth will set you free), saying that it “profoundly guided his preaching of Christ crucified and his constant invitation to conversion that the Holy Spirit continually brings about in those who have received the Word of God.”