Pope from Port Moresby: ‘Let the riches of the land and sea be for all’

In the Oceania archipelago marked by intensive exploitation by large multinationals, the pontiff urges ‘sustainable and equitable development’. The call  to the political community to work together so that the ‘tribal violence that causes many victims’ may cease. The invitation to the Church to have the strength to ‘always begin again’, to reach the most remote physical and human peripheries, including the victims of witchcraft accusations. The call to the blessed martyrs John Mazzucconi and Peter To Rot.

Port Moresby (AsiaNews) - In distributing the proceeds of the resources of Papua New Guinea's land and water and its labour ‘the needs of the local populations should be given due consideration, so as to produce an effective improvement in their living conditions’, because even if 'more expertise and large international companies’ have to be involved in order to exploit these resources, it must be remembered that ‘these goods are destined by God for the entire community’.

Pope Francis launched this  appeal for justice in relations between large interests and small communities in today's globalised world today from Port Morseby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, the second stop on his apostolic journey to South East Asia and Oceania. A natural paradise marked by an ‘extraordinary cultural and human wealth’, the pontiff defined it.

But also an archipelago with fragile balances and wounded by ever new frontiers of exploitation. Where the global race to grab ever new raw materials at low cost, in these remote and little known islands already exposed to the effects of climate change, today risks even threatening the seabed through new deep sea miningprojects .

This is why, addressing the authorities, civil society representatives and the diplomatic corps this morning in Apec House - the modern complex built to host the summit of the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation body for the first time a few years ago - Francis invoked the horizon of ‘sustainable and equitable development, which promotes the wellbeing of all, no one excluded, through concretely executable programmes and through international cooperation, in mutual respect and with agreements that are advantageous to all parties’.

Papua New Guinea itself, however, is also called upon to play its part. Addressing his political community, after meeting with Governor General Bob Dadae, the pontiff recalled how essential to achieve these results is ‘the stability of institutions, fostered by agreement on some essential points between the different conceptions and sensitivities present in society’.

Alluding to the serious clashes that have taken place in recent months in Port Moresby, but also in the province of East Sepik, Pope Francis called for an end to tribal violence ‘which unfortunately causes many victims, does not allow people to live in peace and hinders development’. ‘I appeal to everyone's sense of responsibility,’ he said, ’so that the spiral of violence is interrupted and instead we resolutely take the path that leads to fruitful cooperation, for the benefit of the entire people of the country. He also called for ‘a definitive arrangement’ to be found, ‘avoiding the rekindling of ancient tensions’, including with regard to the status of the island of Bougainville, where in 2019 in a non-binding referendum the local population voted en masse for full independence.

Francis praised the choice of the single word ‘Pray-Pray’, idnoted as the motto of this second leg of his trip. ‘Perhaps some, too observant of ‘political correctness’, may be surprised by this choice,’ he commented, ’but in reality they are wrong, because a people that prays has a future, drawing strength and hope from above.

At the same time, however - in a country where the vast majority of the population professes to be Christians and some evangelical groups have even enthroned the King James Bible in Parliament since 2015, promising that this gesture would bring ‘blessings and riches’ - the Pope hoped that ‘faith is never reduced to the observance of rituals and precepts, but that it consists in love, in loving Jesus Christ and following him, and that it can become a lived culture, inspiring minds and actions and becoming a beacon of light that illuminates the course’.

Living this love is not easy in an extreme land like Papua New Guinea. Pope Francis emphasised this especially during his afternoon meeting with bishops, priests, consecrated persons and pastoral workers at the shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Port Moresby. It is a mission that always asks for ‘the courage to begin again,’ the Pontiff stressed, also recalling the difficulties faced by the first missionaries, among whom he cited Blessed John Baptist Mazzucconi, the first martyr of PIME in 1855, and the local catechist Peter To Rot, who was also killed in odium fidei in 1945 and proclaimed blessed by John Paul II in Papua New Guinea in 1995.

He invited the Catholic Church to start out again every day towards the peripheries, which in this archipelago and on the large island of Papua itself are also particularly physically remote. ‘I am thinking of people belonging to the most deprived sections of urban populations, as well as those living in the most remote and abandoned areas, where sometimes there is a lack of necessities. And again to those marginalised and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition, sometimes to the point of risking their lives,‘ Francis explained, expressly referring to the scourge of violence linked to accusations of witchcraft.

The secret of how to walk like this, the pontiff had confided a few hours earlier to a group of street children and the disabled, assisted by a diocesan organisation and the Callan Service, who welcomed him to the Caritas Technical Secondary School with their dances and the colours of their tribes' traditional clothes. ‘How can we make our world more beautiful and happy?’ they asked him.

To them Francis - with an effective image - invited them to learn from the cat: ‘Have you ever seen how a cat prepares itself when it has to make a big leap? First he concentrates and points all his strength and muscles in the right direction. Maybe he does it in a quick moment, and we don't even notice it, but he does it. And so do we: concentrate all our strength on the goal, which is the love of and for Jesus and in Him for all the brothers and sisters we meet on our way. Then with impetus fill everything and everyone with our affection’.

• Pope Francis
• Papua New Guinea
• Port Moresby
• environment
• witchcraft