Pope Francis is raising hopes ahead of PNG tour

Aug 28, 2024

By Luke Hunt
Pope Francis has shown a determination to meet his flock in the farthest corners of the globe and when he touches down in Port Moresby on Sept. 6 for a four-day tour of Papua New Guinea, the 87-year-old pontiff will have delivered on an invitation made almost eight years ago.

The Covid pandemic and concerns over the pope’s health delayed the 12-day trip, which also takes in Indonesia, Timor Leste, Singapore, and — as insiders say — to the peripheries of the Church, as part of his longest trip abroad since Francis was elected in 2013.

In PNG hopes are high that the canonization of Peter To Rot — a locally-born catechist and father of three who was imprisoned and murdered by the Japanese during World War II — will be announced. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995 alongside Australia’s Mary Mackillop.

But where MacKillop was made a saint in 2010, efforts to have To Rot canonized as PNG’s first saint have stalled amid complaints that a lack of resources had stymied investigations into miracle healings as required by the Vatican.

That lack of resources is reflected across the country. PNG is hindered by natural disasters, social and economic upheavals, and advocates have suggested the pope could step into the deforestation debate as he did in Madagascar five years ago.

PNG is home to the world’s third largest rainforest behind the Amazon and the Congo and while the pope tends to maintain a healthy distance from politics in Madagascar, he praised the island’s beauty but warned of the threat posed by deforestation for the benefit of a few.

It was a point made clear in May when Francis held a private audience with Mundiya Kepanga, an indigenous leader and environmentalist, who expressed his tribe’s concerns as part of preparations for the upcoming tour, the third papal visit.

Pope John Paul II went to PNG in 1984 and 1995 and when Francis arrives, he will find little has changed in almost 30 years and his criticisms of unbridled capitalism and consumerism will strike a chord in a country ranked around 134th in the global wealth stakes.

But it is the natural disasters — volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and cyclones — that have taken a heavy toll on PNG’s 9.4 million people. In May a landslide claimed more than 650 lives and displaced thousands more, prompting prayers and hope from the pope.

“May the Lord comfort their families, those who lost their homes and the Papuan people, whom, God willing, I will meet next September,” the pope said during a general audience at the Vatican with Italian pilgrims.

The PNG tour will follow a five-day visit to Muslim-dominated Indonesia where the pope intends to build on mutual trust between Islam and Christianity but human rights issues in regions like conflict-torn Papua, which also shares a border with PNG, remain a serious concern.

“Indonesia and PNG are very different countries, but if the pope is able to build new bridges between religious communities, particularly between Christians and Muslims, that can only be positive for the broader region," said Bradley Murg, a fellow with Pacific Forum.

He also noted that PNG’s Catholic population was substantial and the regional tour was timely given Timor Leste is moving through its accession process in joining the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“This highlights the Church's unique role in the region as ASEAN will soon have two Catholic majority states as members with Dili joining Manila around the ASEAN conference table,” he said.

Others are also hopeful this papal tour will make a difference, not just for PNG’s two million Catholics, which is just under 30 percent of the population, but also for stranded, predominantly Muslim, refugees.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society in Australia says the pontiff’s presence could help resolve the plight of around 70 refugees, still held in PNG under a deal with Australia, which diverted asylum seekers arriving by boat to neighboring states throughout much of the 2010s.

National president, Mark Gaetani, said Pope Francis would be well aware of those refugees who fled Afghanistan, the Middle East and Sri Lanka, and still lack sanitary conditions, food, electricity and health care.

Pope Francis is also due to fly to the tiny and remote Diocese of Vanimo, near the Indonesian border on Sept. 8, where he will celebrate a Mass and meet with missionaries and young girls protected in a safe house.

Bishop Francis Meli has led the diocese for six years and noted the pope’s arrival would prove historic given no pope had ever visited the diocese and it was unlikely there would be any more, adding, that the pope always speaks about the periphery and the periphery is the most remote.

“The pope coming to these countries, I think, exemplifies his desire to highlight for the world and the rest of the Church the central place of the peripheries,” James Rooney, an assistant professor of Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University and a Dominican friar, told UCA News.

“He is going there to express solidarity, naturally with Catholics but also all those of goodwill who might be from smaller countries traditionally marginalized in various ways, to express God's love of all people and that no country or person is outside of God's care,” he said.--ucanews.com