As Pope Francis prepares to visit Papua New Guinea in September, the Superior General of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart says the pontiff will “find a Church with a strong practice of faith, but in the style of Papua New Guinea”. Source: Vatican News.
“These are very ancient peoples with very ancient traditions. For them, the Pope’s presence is a confirmation of their journey as a Church, as the people of God,” said Fr Mario Abzalón Alvarado Tovar, Superior General of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC).
The Pope is scheduled to make an Apostolic Journey to Asia and Oceania later this year, which will include a stop in PNG from September 6 to 9.
Fr Alvarado says that the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were sent to PNG during the lifetime of their founder, Fr Jules Chevalier. They received their missionary mandate in the late 1870s.
“In fact, since 1881, we have been in Papua New Guinea, marking the beginning of the modern era of the Church there,” he said. “There had been minimal presences many centuries before, in very ancient times, but since 1881, we have been present continuously. We are, in a sense, the pioneers of the ecclesial growth in Papua New Guinea.”
The Guatemalan-born missionary describes PNG as a multicultural world and the Church there as multicoloured, multilingual, and multiethnic in every sense.
“There is a saying that describes Papua New Guinea,” Fr Alvarado said, “as ‘the land of the unexpected’.”
It is a country with a very ancient cultural tradition but with a way of life very different from the Western world.
Referring to the ecclesial reality that Pope Francis will encounter in PNG, Fr Alvarado indicated that it is a Church with many rituals and dances, born from a rural world of jungle, rivers, fishing, and hunting.
Fr Alvarado said there has been significant progress in PNG, and there is a strong Church on the island. However, it faces challenges like those worldwide, such as climate change, mining with no respect for local communities, and systemic poverty.
FULL STORY
Pope will find ‘strong and multicultural’ Church in Papua New Guinea (By Renato Martinez, Vatican News)
