Villagers near the town of Bereina in Central Province

ZENIT
| Catholic Leader

BEREINA - When the villagers of impoverished Bereina need to quell their famine, they reach for the noxious betel nut.

In the town of Bereina, in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea, the addictive seed, which is prohibited in Australia, is often the only food source for the local villagers.

Mass at a church in PNG (Michal Knitl,  Shutterstock.com)

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - One of the distinguishing features of human beings is our ability to create myths and stories.

These narratives entertain but also perform a much more important role in setting ethical and behavioural standards.

Some of the greatest mythical inventions appear as religious texts, like the Bible and the Koran, but there are also secular myths that serve the same purpose.

"In effect the churches blame the wife for the beatings and violence her husband has inflicted on her"

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - In the first of a series of recent articles on gender and Christianity on The Conversation website it is suggested that a literal translation of the bible may be contributing to domestic violence.

In a self-declared Christian nation like Papua New Guinea, with very high levels of violence against women and children, this discussion has particular relevance.

Alphonse Mek - "Sometimes I dreamed of becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Other times I imagined forming a gang"

ALPHONSE MEK

Alphonse Mek is minister of Mt Kora Adventist Church in Jiwaka Province. He graduated with an advanced diploma in theology from Sonoma Adventist College on Sunday 24 November

ENGA - We all have our own dreams and plans, but to realise those aspirations takes a lot of time, determination and perseverance.

I have seen and felt and tasted the pain of trying to get a good education.

More than 500 people attended a program to try to rid Enga society of drug-taking and drunkenness

PORAP GAI

LAIAGAM - Kuplam Seventh Day Adventist church is in Komaip village beside the police station not far away from Laiagam station.

It’s just a right turn from the road to Porgera gold mine amongst the tribes of the Lyen, Samb, Tee and Waiten people, highly populated groups but with many illiterates and a lot of drug use and other illegal activities.

Enga’s  Seventh Day Adventist His Voice singers, their voices echoing in the woods of Laiagam, Porgera and Mt Kare

PORAP GAI

LAIAGAM - His Voice is the singing ministry of the Seventh Day Adventist church in Enga.

The group was formed in 2019 by men and boys from Tee, Paiyan, Walian and other neighbouring tribesmen of Paip SDA church in Mamal village in the Laiagam District.

On social media, people in our country and even the world can see our own Wild West of the three Engan districts of Laiagam, Kandep and Porgera fighting wars and losing lives.

Alphonse Mek - "One thing I know from my life is that struggle and hardship can shape you as a person"

ALPHONSE MEK

SONOMA – I’m Alphonse Mek, originally from Enga and later from Jiwaka and Western Highlands provinces.

I come from a background of struggle.

My father, Pok Kyngal, died when I was about six years old. Just before he died he took me in his loving harms and cried as I watched. This memory is fresh in me.

Pope Francis and Cardinal Ribat, who asks: "“Where will we be after all these islands are gone?”

MBIKOYEZU JOHN
| Vatican News

THE VATICAN - As the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region ended recently, Cardinal John Ribat of Papua New Guinea said he could identify with most of the topics that were discussed.

Cardinal Ribat, the Archbishop of Port Moresby, said that there are many similarities between Papua New Guinea and the Amazon region and many topics resonated with what is happening in PNG.

John Bosco Auram - the new bishop of Kimbe has had a distinguished upbringing in the church

NEWS DESK
| Vatican News

THE VATICAN - In Papua New Guinea on Friday, Pope Francis appointed Father John Bosco Auram as the new bishop of Kimbe Diocese in West New Britain.

The Pope appointed the 47-year old priest in the place of Capuchin bishop William Regis Fey who reached the retirement age of 75 last year.

Jeff Febi - "Assisting church-run agencies by giving them 10% of the dividends from state owned enterprises is a noble move, but is the timing right?"

JEFFREY FEBI

LUFA - The government's supplementary budget went big on expenditure cuts to plug a big dark deficit hole of about K4.6 billion.

This hole was dug by the government of former prime minister Peter O'Neill through creative but reckless spending on Port Moresby-centric infrastructure development.

Some urban centres throughout Papua New Guinea might have gained one or two infrastructure investments while others missed out entirely.

Sister Teresa and Vietnamese detainees - ensuring that barriers to freedom  and justice are overcome

FR AMBROSE PEREIRA
| Asia News

PORT MORESBY– Young migrants, refugees and people detained in Papua New Guinea struggle to overcome the barriers of language and culture as they seek to get back to their homeland or a third country.

They experience not just separation from their places of origin but also cultural and religious uprooting.

This is where the Church can serve as a reference point for these people. “The Church has an important role and can bring new life to them” (Christus vivit, Chap 3, par 93).

Fr Giorgio Licini - "“Arrogance and a refusal to listen will isolate the big south island, leaving the smaller ones in the vast ocean with no choice but to turn to Asia"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – A prominent Catholic priest in Papua New Guinea says Australia, as the region’s richest and biggest nation, should “lead through kindness” in the south-west Pacific and show “solidarity and inclusiveness”.

Writing in the PNG Catholic Reporter, Fr Giorgio Licini said the PNG government and civil society also have a responsibility because of their “central position among the family of nations in the Pacific [to] raise their voice regarding the current most pressing issues”.

Fr Giorgio enumerated these as Australia’s attitudes to offshore detention, refusing to acknowledge the negative environmental impact of coal burning and making “access and work difficult for other members of the Pacific family”.

BRAD WATSON | Adventist Record | Edited

Recent literacy graduates from the Guna-Goreku people of Simbu, who seem to have found a sustainable peace

KUNDIAWA - The air is filled with smoke rising languidly above mounds of black ash. Women and children hide in the forest, terrified of those who have stripped their fields and herded away their pigs.

In the distance, a decrepit school stands idly, empty of laughter or the sounds of teachers scolding students. A small church, recently filled with sounds of song and praise, is the only building that is untouched.

Over a ridge, a widow watches a sweet potato roasting on a bed of glowing ash. She is worried. Her hands tremble. Recently a man in her clan died after a long illness. Some of the relatives are saying she is responsible.

They huddle together and whisper. A witch, one says. A sorcerer, says another. A Dracula. For that is the new word they use for the likes of her. She has done nothing but fears what will happen when the relatives of the deceased man return to her house.

Neragaima Catholic Mission

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - Galkope men’s houses (hausman), in what is now the Simbu Province, schooled young boys of the Dom, Yuri, Bari and Erula Nauro tribes, which had colonised their territories by migrating from different lands.

The Dom evolved out of Dlekopl while the Yuri walked east through the Wahgi valley. Erula 1-4 evolved out of Monguma, while the Bari arrived at Dukul Mormapir from the Gena-Nogar.

These four tribes, now referred to as Galkope, converged and settled on either sides of the Kola-Kawa River alongside an existing tribe, the Teklau-Baimane.

The Teklau-Baimane settled at Olkaipel, Mekul, Kaluvalu and the vicinity - but fled west after killing Yuri Alaibia before the coming of the Makruai, and settled at Kerual Apane in Jiwaka Province. To this day the older people still speak the Nauro-Bari language.

Against this backdrop, the Roman Catholic Church arrived unexpectedly and settled at Mingende just after the Makruai. The church extended its influence to new lands and built a new mission station at Yopar. The Gakwane and the Erula Nauro people were excited about the opportunities the church brought to their midst.

Fr Giorgio Licini - “You cannot keep people in those conditions indefinitely; you destroy them. And who allows you to destroy people?”

PETER BUGDEN | The Catholic Leader

BRISBANE - A senior priest in Papua New Guinea has turned to Australia seeking compassion for refugees and asylum seekers languishing in our nation’s off-shore detention system.

Fr Giorgio Licini, general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and Solomon Islands, has been in Australia in recent weeks pressing the case for an end to what he calls “a humanitarian crisis”.

Fr Licini has called for the Australian government to resolve the situation on humanitarian grounds.

Speaking as a missionary from PNG – a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions – and as a church man, Fr Licini said “we don’t necessarily question the policies of government in terms of border protection … but in this specific case I would say, see now the humanitarian crisis”.

Imam of Mt Hagen, Ahmad Didat - “When I built this mosque, I was alone. Then the community came"

SCOTT WAIDE | EMTV

LAE – At midday, as a small group of men and boys prepare for Friday Prayers in Kagamuga, Western Highlands, a local Imam makes the Muslim call to prayer.

The Arabic language sounds very foreign here. This is one of the few Islamic communities in the Western Highlands finding its way in a country that describes itself as predominantly Christian.

Inside the small mosque, the men and boys line up in front as the prayers begin. The women, as per Islamic teaching, are in another room.

“When I built this mosque, I was alone. I had not received any formal training yet when I converted to Islam,” says the local Imam, Ahmad Didat. “Then the boys nearby came and joined me. Then the community came.”

Sister Ellen White - Seventh Day Adventist church founder and remembered as a prophet and oyster eater

PETER KRANZ

MORRISET, NSW - So now there are three Seventh Day Adventists in important positions in Papua New Guinea.

There’s new prime minister James Marape, chief justice Gibbs Salika and the parliamentary speaker Job Pomat.

Well I won't criticise them for their religious beliefs. Oh hell, I'll have a go anyway. And I feel somewhat qualified to pass judgement.

My great-grandfather was the first ordained SDA pastor in the Pacific and Australia. And both my grandad and dad were SDA pastors. That’s three generations before I arrived.

Great-grandfather received a testimony from Sister Ellen White, founder of the church and widely regarded amongst adherents as a prophet from God.

My grandmother had afternoon tea with Sr White at Sunnyside in Avondale in the late 1890s. The house still stands this day and is near where I live.

So I grew up in the SDA, and believe me it is no less open to charges of hypocrisy and procrastination than any other church.

Israel Folau "has not sought to persecute; all he has done is issue a heartfelt, albeit misdirected, warning"

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The appalling decision by the politically correct pedants at Rugby Australia to terminate Israel Folau’s contract for the apparently heinous offence of posting a comment on his religious beliefs has set a very dangerous precedent.

I’m not particularly inclined to get excited about grown men chasing a leather ball around a paddock nor am I inclined to believe in supreme beings but I am inclined to believe that people like Israel Folau have a perfect right to say what they believe without fear of persecution.

What he said is what he believes. He was born in New South Wales of Tongan parents. As a Pacific Islander his profound religious beliefs come as no surprise.

That he felt the need to warn people who are different to him of the imputed biblical consequences of those differences, irrelevant as that may be, is also not particularly unusual.

Fr Mark Franklin - his Kenmore parish is cleaning up the environment while assisting the Catholic church in Milne Bay

NICK HOLT | Catholic Leader

BRISBANE - Kenmore parish has furthered its commitment to Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home by turning recyclables into foreign aid donations.

The parish has collected more than 4,000 recyclable containers like bottles, cans and cardboard, which earn 10 cents per unit under the Queensland government initiative Containers for Cash.

The funds collected by the parish were used to buy a boat for a Papua New Guinean bishop.

“We had a parishioner come to us last year about helping buy a small boat for Fr Sam Phasz, a priest of the Province of Milne Bay in the Diocese of Alotau-Sideia,” said parish priest Fr Mark Franklin.

The Lean family at their new home in Kudjip in the Western Highlands

PETER GUNDERS | ABC Southern Queensland | Extract

TOOWOOMBA, QLD - Dave and Mary Lean have made a very different kind of tree change — taking their five young children with them from Toowoomba in southern Queensland to the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

"A lot of people say, 'Are you taking your children with you?', but I think in their minds they're actually asking, 'Are you crazy?'" Dr Lean said.

"Our youngest is 15 months old, and we're going for at least two years. So yes, we're taking our children!" Dr Lean said.

Home will be on the compound of a 160-bed hospital in Kudjip, an hour's drive east of Mt Hagen.

Dave Lean will be one of two paediatricians at the hospital that covers a population of 400,000.

"I've loved working at Toowoomba hospital for the past two years, and in one sense the work doesn't change, but the way children present in PNG is often far sicker than what we see in Australia," Dr Lean said.

KEITH JACKSON | Sources

NOOSA – The Catholic bishops of Papua New Guinea have had enough of the O’Neill government, blasting it for failing to take action on corruption and for what they have referred to as its “general incompetence”.

In a public statement, the bishops asked why an Independent Commission Against Corruption had not yet been established, despite many promises over many years, and why nothing has been done to end the Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABLs) which are said to have led to many illegal land grabs.

They condemned SABLs for continuing to destroy the environment and the livelihoods of thousands of Papua New Guineans.

The statement also attacked the practice of politicians directly distributing government funds to the people themselves.

SCOTT WAIDE | My Land, My Country

LAE - It was bound to come to light sooner than later. Over the last 20 years, the Catholic Church has been under intense pressure to admit to cases of sexual abuse within its ranks.

Admitting is one thing. But investigating and bringing criminal proceedings against the offending priests and other members of the clergy is another matter altogether.

It is something the Catholic Church has shied away from for many decades.

Last week people around the world read in horror as the Vatican treasurer, the third highest ranking Catholic clergyman from the Pope, Cardinal George Pell, was found guilty of sexually assaulting two boys when he was an archbishop.

Fr Giorgio Licini - 'I appeal to your sense of humanity and the responsibility of your high office'

FR GIORGIO LICINI | General Secretary, Catholic Bishops Conference

WAIGANI - Dear Hon Prime Minister: It is with heavy heart and an intense sense of sadness that I report to you on my recent visits to Lorengau town in Manus Island and to the Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby.

At the two locations, I had the heartbreaking experience of making contact with an appalling level of desperation in which refugees and asylum seekers live.

I am not referring to the logistic conditions in which the men are kept, which appear to be decent with security, cleanliness, and respect by national and expatriate personnel.

My concern is rather about their fast deteriorating health status, which is making now acts of self-harm and attempted suicide a daily occurrence: three cases only for the two days I was in Manus on 20-22 January.

While travel to Manus and to the detention centers may prove hard to your busy schedule, I warmly invite you to make a quick visit to the [Intensive Care Unit] ward of Pacific International Hospital at 3 Mile.

You will come across well-kept health facilities and extremely kind and professional personnel, but you will also meet about twenty refugees and asylum seekers in a deplorable state of mental health compounded with other ailments affecting their cardiac and respiratory system, kidney failure, fractured bones, etc.

PETER KRANZ

MORRISET – When I first went to Papua New Guinea, my pastor Dad gave me one bit of advice.

"Peter you must listen to the church choirs."

And, what do you know, my university-assigned house at Fort Banner was next door to Vincent's, who was the conductor of the local Catholic church choir.

I was able to enjoy hearing them practice every Friday evening.

A 1980s view of Karap from the air gives an indication of the steep mountainsides. Lower left is the road to Tabibuga, upper right the road to Banz, middle left the road to Kol

GARRY ROCHE

DUBLIN, IRELAND- I had arrived in Papua New Guinea in October 1970, when it was known as the Territory of Papua New Guinea (it changed its name to just Papua New Guinea in 1972.)

Nine months later, in July 1971, I was sent to take charge of Karap, a parish in the Jimi Valley.

This area is now in Jiwaka Province but back then it was part of the Western Highlands District.

Things were on the move. A new road had been constructed from near Banz through Kwiona, Kauil and Karap to the government station at Tabibuga.

The drive from Banz to Karap normally took at least two hours, and from Karap to Tabiguba about an hour. Four-wheel drive vehicles were necessary.

At Karap there is now a road branching off to Kol in the Upper Jimi, but that road did not exist in the early 1970s.

The 'mansion' in which I lived was a cabin made from pit-sawn timber with a thatched kunai grass roof and a nearby shed was stacked with timber used for building the church and school classrooms.

My house was on a hilltop overlooking the road and there was a great view looking down the valley of the Tsau river.

STAFF WRITER | Catholic News Agency

PORT MORESBY - The bishops of Papua New Guinea have issued a renewed plea on behalf of the nearly 500 refugees and asylum seekers being held in indefinite detention in deteriorating conditions.

“These people have been away from their families for the sixth Christmas… it was just another night of detention on Manus Island,” said Fr Ambrose Pereira, communication secretary for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Facing conditions of trauma, overcrowding, and lack of food, he said, “most of them survive thanks to medicines, mostly anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics,” and many face serious side effects from taking the medications long-term without a prescription.

Fr Giorgio Licini

STAFF REPORTER | Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND - Predator priests will face the full force of the law, Catholic bishops in the Pacific say.

In Papua New Guinea, Fr Giorgio Licini said any cases of priests abusing children will be dealt with severely and revealed that an office had been established to deal with the matter.

Meanwhile, the head of the church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, said his church had policy and protocols in place for suspected sexual offending among priests.

"That has been the stand of the church and each conference of bishops has been instructed that we need to put in a policy for sexual abuse," the archbishop said.

"We have a sexual abuse policy to see to it that, when somebody is a sexual offender, procedures are carried out so that this person is interrogated and taken to task."

Manokwari, the capital city of West Papua (David Worabay)

STAFF CORRESPONDENT | Anglican News

AUCKLAND - Bishops from the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia - including Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, America Samoa and the Cook Islands - have expressed “deep disappointment” at what they say is the continued suppression of the first people of West Papua.

The political status of West Papua is disputed. In the 1940s, with the collapse of the Netherlands East Indies, Indonesia claimed sovereignty over all of the former colony but the Dutch retained control over West Papua.

In the 1960s, Indonesia invaded the island and a later UN-brokered peace deal resulted in 1,000 ‘elders’ voting to become part of Indonesia in a disputed election.

Last year, an ecumenical pastoral solidarity group from the Christian Council of Asia visited West Papua and described “grave human rights violations” in the region.

PHILIP KAI MORRE

KUNDIAWA - It was a hot day here in Kundiawa town and I was walking to the provincial government building when my eyes caught a poster about Fr Karl Morschheuser SVD.

The poster, hanging on a rope at the stationery shop on the other side of the road, read ‘Fr Karl Morschheuser. Memorial Mass at Mirane Catholic Church. Starts at 9 am, 16 December 2018. All welcome’.

It was the day we had been waiting for.

In the middle of a busy street crowded with people, the poster pushed me into a deep reminiscence of the life and tragic death of Fr Morschheuser on this day - Sunday 16 December -  in 1934.

This tall and handsome young German was the first martyr of the Papua New Guinea highlands - slain at Bedume in Upper Simbu over a dispute about a pig killed by another priest, Fr van Baar SVD.

MALINDA KOTOVEKE PHILIP | Adventist Record

Photo: Pioneering Sonoma Adventist College students Jim Manele and John Hamura with the college’s first principal, Alexander Currie (Adventist Record)

RABAUL - Sonoma Adventist College recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and school reunion.

Former students from PNG and the Solomon Islands came together in September to commemorate the occasion. Pioneering principal Alexander Currie, his wife, Beverley, and two sons, Gavin and Philip, were special guests.

For Sonoma, which grew from humble beginnings into a school affiliated with Pacific Adventist University, celebrating 50 years of service to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in PNG and the South Pacific region is a significant achievement for the institution and the Papua New Guinea Union Mission.

Sacred Heart Church, Samarai

MEDIA STATEMENT | Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG & Solomon Islands

PORT MORESBY - The primary task of the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea is to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people. As such the church adopts no particular position on political or economic issues except to bring gospel values to this part of life.

However, since the Catholic Church is known and expected to speak for those without a voice, and has a reputation for its concern for the rural poor of PNG, many have asked us for our position on APEC.

We have addressed this issue many times in the past and more recently appealed for a return to the division of powers that could ensure that political power and the equitable distribution of wealth are kept separate.

We share the concern of many about the huge amount of our limited resources being expended on this event which seems designed to entertain and impress the rich and powerful.

Given its inevitability, we can only hope for its ‘success’, which can only mean that the welfare of the poorest people of PNG will somehow indirectly be improved. Although we all would like to make a good impression on our visitors, this cannot be at the expense of the truth.

Water lily pond at the Pacific Adventist University just outside Port Moresby

SIMON DAVIDSON

PORT MORESBY - The Melanesia Association of Theological Schools conference, held last week at the Pacific Adventist University, is an annual event where theologians, scholars and pastors from theological schools and churches gather to discuss theological issues affecting Christians in Melanesia.

The university hosted this year’s interdenominational conference and its school of theology, humanities and education worked together for the whole year to prepare for the event under the leadership of Dr Elisapesi Mason.

The three-day conference was officially opened by Dr Lalen Simeon, deputy vice chancellor of Pacific Adventist University in the presence of vice chancellor Dr Raul Lozano, registrar Mrs Pele Alu and staff members.

Sheena Li and Papua New Guinean children

SHEENA LI as told to Kate Whitehead | South China Morning Post | Edited extracts

High-flier Sheena Li, who grew up in Hong Kong before her family moved to Canada, shuns wealth and prestige to make a difference among the world’s most needy communities

TORONTO - My parents met at Hong Kong University. My father worked in the Education Bureau and my mum was a social worker. I was born in 1979.

My parents decided to emigrate to Toronto when I was 11 – they thought there would be better opportunities for my brother and I, and there was also uncertainty over the future in Hong Kong.

If we’d stayed in Hong Kong, I don’t think my brother and I would have got the grades to go to university, but in Canada we thrived. I was determined to learn English so I could make friends. I read a lot of books and I read the Bible, which is how I became a Christian.

CATHERINE GRAUE | Pacific Beat | Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Extract

You can read the full article here

SYDNEY - Pressure is mounting on Papua New Guinea's Government to reconsider its contracts with health clinics run by the Catholic Church, amid concerns some are deliberately failing to meet their obligations of providing a full family planning service.

While advocating natural methods of contraception, the Church insists it also provides counselling and a patient referral system, which is a requirement of its contract with the PNG Health Department.

But family planning advocates claim items being provided to Catholic clinics by the Government go unused and are being destroyed, while others report spot checks are being carried out by senior church officials.

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - The Western world’s Satan and Papua New Guinean sanguma (sorcery) seem to be similar concepts but Western religious scholars dictate that the Trinity and the college of angels (including Satan) exists in the ether but sanguma does not.

This view defies logic because both Satan and sanguma are associated with evil and are on the same side of the coin.

No Christian (verifiably anyway) has seen the Trinity, angels, the intercession of the Saints or Satan yet they believe in their existence and control over the peaks and troughs of life.

However, sanguma, exactly the same concept as Satan, is stamped ‘null and void’.

Melanesian Nativity (courtesy Peter Kranz)

PHILIP KAI MORRE

KUNDIAWA - Many Christians around the world have adopted a material and secular meaning of Christmas: giving and receiving gifts to strengthen social and economic bonds; reuniting with families and friends; celebrating; and taking holidays from work.

Special gifts are given to special friends at this time of year, representing personal commitment, appreciation, beauty, joy, pride and positive experience.

In Papua New Guinea, and especially in the Highlands where I live, the true meaning of Christmas is not fully observed. Rather, it is seen as the time to receive and remit bride prices, celebrate weddings, pay compensation, hold funeral feasts, drink and enjoy in a more casual way.

The problems to be solved can wait.

The first church on Tami Island PNG

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The spread of western civilisation across the globe was, inevitably, accompanied by efforts to spread the Christian religion in its various forms.

So the Spanish were enthusiastic proponents of Catholicism in South America, whilst the Dutch promoted an austere version of the Protestant faith in what is now Indonesia.

The British promoted Anglicanism which was and is effectively a state religion given that the Queen is its Governor.

Papua New Guinea, being colonised rather late in the era of rapid European imperial expansion, became contested ground for the various types of Christianity.

People can be beautiful but does religion really make us better?

PETER KRANZ

NEWCASTLE - The Catholics were the first missionaries in the upper Simbu in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, and some got killed for their trouble.

Then the Lutherans came to Kundiawa in central Simbu and built a church mission station that remains to this day.

The missionaries were infused with a desire to bring the message of God to the 'heathens', a zealousness which is still seen today with evangelical Protestants spreading the word using pop music and, in their fund-raising back home, with fake news about Christianising the 'savages'.

In PNG overall, these 150 years of Christian contact have had a profound impact on traditional culture - in big ways and bizarre ways.

Missionaries offended by bare breasts and instituted the Mother Hubbard, or meri blouse, introducing skin complaints along with prudery.

And of course polygamy was beyond the pale.

Full membership of the church was refused to men who had more than one wife.

Kiap Tom Ellis with Bishop George Bernarding and Fr Arnold Steffen

GARRY ROCHE

DUBLIN – Contributor Ross Howard, writing recently in PNG Attitude, has eloquently provided us with an historical background to the debate about science and the church.

Perhaps it’s worthwhile, in commenting on the role of the churches in the development of Papua New Guinea, to look very briefly at the contribution of the churches in the fields of education and health.

Bishop George Bernarding, former Bishop of Mt Hagen, once told me that in the period after World War II the Catholic mission wanted to start an English-speaking school at Kondiu in Simbu but the Australian administration was not in favour saying Pidgin schools would be quite adequate.

The Diocese of Mt Hagen eventually established two high schools, Fatima and Notre Dame, and numerous community schools in what was then Western Highlands District. To the best of my knowledge the District Commissioner, Tom Ellis, was most supportive.

Bishop Rolando Santos & Fr Neil Lams

JOANNE McCARTHY | Newcastle Herald

NEWCASTLE - A Papua New Guinea Catholic bishop says he will reinstate an Australian Vincentian priest to a PNG high school despite a police investigation of allegations involving school students, and a church investigation confirming the priest touched students’ legs and sometimes slapped them.

Bishop Rolando Santos said Australian Vincentian priest Neil Lams was “firm, upright and committed” and he was not changing the priest’s assignment as chaplain to the PNG school.

The bishop reserved the right to take defamation action against people, including school teachers, who complained about the priest’s behaviour.

A church investigation report, which Bishop Santos supplied to the Newcastle Herald, found no evidence to support allegations Father Lams sexually abused two female students at a Catholic high school in eastern PNG.

But investigators for the PNG Catholic Church Office of Right Relationships in Ministry found evidence of confessional “incidents”, where Father Lams touched students on the legs and asked questions about sex that left students “embarrassed or scared or hurt or surprised”.

Rob Parer, Sr Cecilia Prest & Marg Parer

ROB PARER 

BRISBANE - I received an email last Friday from Franciscan missionary Sister Cecilia Prest Mfic who has spent 15 years at Woorabinda, an indigenous community town 180 km south-west of Rockhampton in Queensland.

Previously Sr Cecilia was in the Aitape Diocese of Papua New Guinea for 28 years - most of the time in charge of the health centre at small mission station of Fatima near Lumi.

She told me that Fr Bruno Pokule was visiting Woorabinda for a few days, adding that she had delivered him when she was based at Sissano. Sr Cecilia remembers she was up all night as it had proved to be “a very difficult delivery”.

BISHOP DONALD LIPPERT

THE people of Saint John the Apostle Parish in Hedmari, Hela Province, recently hosted a joyful and reverent celebration for the blessing of their new one-of-a-kind church building.

The old church building was falling into serious disrepair and the community was quickly outgrowing it.

The people together with the parish priest Fr Joice Packel CST considered the options.

At first they thought of attaching a wing to the old church but abandoned the idea as impractical.

The real dream of the people and Fr Joice was to build a new church, but how?

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

PAPUA New Guinea's national court has ordered the country’s Immigration and Citizenship Service Authority to facilitate the return to the country of New Zealander Douglas Tennent.

The religious lay worker was deported last month for allegedly breaching the terms of his religious worker visa.

As a qualified lawyer working for the Archbishop of Rabaul, Mr Tennent had been advising landowners at West Pomio who were involved in a contractual wrangle with logging and palm oil multinational company Rimbunan Hijau.

KENDALL HUTT | Asia Pacific Report

RABAUL Archbishop Francesco Panfilo has said the deportation of New Zealand missionary Douglas Tennent remains an issue whichever government is in power in Papua New Guinea.

“I want to inform all [sitting] candidates and aspiring candidates for national elections that neither the Archdiocese of Rabaul nor the Catholic Bishops’ Conference will take this matter lightly, as it seems to imply that to work for justice is outside of a ‘religious worker’ status.”

Archbishop Panfilo’s call comes after Mr Tennent, who had been working as an administrator for the Archdiocese of Rabaul since June 2014, was deported on 12 June 2017, over an alleged breach of visa conditions.

Authorities claim Mr Tennent was deported due to “blatant abuse” of his ‘special exemption/religious worker visa’ after engaging in “sensitive landowner issues in East New Britain Province”.

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

THE Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea is planning legal action against the acting chief migration officer Solomon Kantha over what it says was the illegal deportation of religious layworker, Doug Tennent.

Mr Tennent was working for the Archbishop of Rabaul, Francesco Panfilo (pictured), helping landowners battling a multi-national logger and palm oil company, Rimbunan Hijau.

Mr Tennent, a New Zealander, was bundled onto a plane and deported despite a stay order being presented to immigration personnel by senior church officials, including the Vatican ambassador.

SAM KOIM

THE hasty deportation of three missionaries in separate suspicious circumstances should not go without a challenge. Where is the Christian community?

Touching a missionary touches the core of Christianity in Papua New Guinea. It is expected that churches would rise up and condemn such actions regardless of which church the expelled missionary came from.

The deportation of one missionary should be considered an attack on Christianity in PNG.

It’s a week since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs deported the three missionaries but the silence of the Church is deafening. Where is the so called PNG Council of Churches or the de facto Body of Christ?

DANIEL KUMBON

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato should be ashamed of himself if he gave the approval for lay missionary Douglas Tennent to be deported from Papua New Guinea.

Missionaries appear to be his targets for deportation. There have been a number of other cases.

The minister should know that Catholic and Lutheran missionaries were the first to bring essential services like health and education to his own Enga Province in the late 1940s.

Rimbink (pictured here) himself attended St Paul’s Lutheran High, the first to be established near his village in Wapenamanda by missionaries.

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

A NEW Zealand missionary deported from Papua New Guinea says he wants PNG Immigration to spell out to him how he breached his visa.

Despite a court order staying his deportation, Douglas Tennent (pictured) was forced to leave PNG on Monday after being told on Friday by immigration officials he was abusing the conditions of his religious worker visa.

Mr Tennent had been working at the Rabaul archdiocese where among his roles was helping local people affected by multi-national Rimbunan Hijau's palm oil operations.

Now back in New Zealand, Mr Tennent said he wants just two things.

"One of them is to return to PNG to continue my work with the archdiocese in helping local people on infrastructure and land issues," he said.

KEITH JACKSON

AN expatriate lay missionary had his entry permit revoked and was deported from Papua New Guinea today because of what the government alleges is a “blatant abuse” of his visa “by engaging in sensitive landowner issues in East New Britain Province”.

And the Catholic Archbishop of Rabaul, Francesco Panfilo SDB (pictured), has asked if this means “the level of corruption reached by the government is beyond remedy?”

Archbishop Panfilo said Douglas Tennent, a lay missionary from New Zealand and a former lecturer of law at UPNG, came to East New Britain as a lay missionary with an entry permit as a ‘special exemption/religious worker’.

PETER KRANZ

STEPHEN Fry was threatened with prosecution for blasphemy over comments he made about God being evil for allowing bone cancer in children.

In Jakarta Governor Ahok has been sent to gaol for suggesting the Koran doesn't forbid Muslims for voting for a Christian.

And in Papua New Guinea and Australia we have paedophiles hiding under the skirts of the church.

This is all disturbing, but one memory particularly haunts me.