It was a reference to tribal violence over land and other disputes that have long characterized the country’s culture but have become more deadly in recent years. Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea To call for an end to violence, including gender-based violence, and to promote a sense of civic responsibility and cooperation.
Francis began the day with a Mass before an estimated 35,000 people In the capital’s stadiumPort Moresby. Dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses perform to traditional drum beats as priests in green robes process the altar.
In his homily, Francis told the crowd that he may feel distant from both his faith and the institutional church, but God was close to him.
“You who live on this huge island in the Pacific Ocean, you might think of yourself as a far-off and distant land on the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today God wants to draw near to you, to break the distance, to let you know that you are at the center of His heart and that each of you is important to Him.”
Francis has long prioritized the church over the “peripheries,” saying that it is actually more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely avoided foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead to remote communities where Catholics are often a minority.
Venimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, where the jungle meets the sea, the coastal town is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.
Francis, the first Latin American Pope in history, also has a special affection for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan, but was prevented from going due to ill health.
Now as pope, he has often held missionaries as models for the church, especially those who sacrifice to bring the faith to distant places.
Argentine missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word religious order Rev. Martin Prado is credited with inviting the Pope to Venimo.
As he waited for Francis to arrive on Sunday, he told reporters the “crazy” story of how Venimo went to Rome with a group of parishioners in 2019, and ended up scoring an audience with the pope after his parishioners insisted they wanted to give. . Give him some gifts.
Prado, who has spent the last 10 of his 36 years as a missionary in Venimo, said he wrote a note, left it for the pope at the Vatican hotel, and the next day received an email from Francis’ secretary inviting him. in the group
“I invited him, but he wanted to come,” Prado said. “He has a big heart for people. It’s not just words, it does what it says.
Prado said some people in the interior of the diocese, in the jungle where cars have yet to arrive, need clothes and for them a plate of rice and tuna fish is “honorable.”
Francis was bringing medicine, musical instruments and toys, the Vatican said, and was also helping to build a new secondary school. Prado said half of the children in the diocese cannot attend high school because there are not enough places for them.
There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, thought to be about 10 million of the Commonwealth nation’s population, according to Vatican figures. Catholics practice the faith with traditional indigenous beliefs, including animism and witchcraft.
On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the Church Leaders in Papua New Guinea To be especially close to these people on the margins wounded by “prejudice and superstition”.
“I also think of marginalized and wounded people, morally and physically, whose lives are sometimes endangered by prejudice and superstition,” Francis said. He urged the Church to be close to such people with “closeness, compassion and tenderness”, especially on the periphery.
Francis’ visit to Venimo was the highlight of his visit to Papua New Guinea, the second leg of a tour of four countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania. After a first stop in Indonesia, Francis heads to East Timor on Monday and then wraps up his visit in Singapore at the end of the week.
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