“Pope Francis will find a Church with a strong practice of faith, but in the style of Papua New Guinea. 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.” Fr. Mario Abzalón Alvarado Tovar, Superior General of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), offered that assessment in an interview with Vatican News ahead of the Pope’s Apostolic Journey to Asia and Oceania, which will include a stop in PNG on September 6-9.
The Guatemalan-born missionary describes Papua New Guinea as a multicultural world and the Church there as multi-coloured, multilingual, and multi-ethnic in every sense. “There is a saying that describes Papua New Guinea,” Father 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. “Pope Francis will find a Church with a strong practice of faith, but in the style of Papua New Guinea, of the islands of New Guinea, of the mainland, of the highlands, and of the coastal areas,” he said. “These are very ancient peoples with very ancient traditions. We need to change the SIM card in our heads when we arrive in Papua New Guinea.”
Referring to the ecclesial reality that Pope Francis will encounter in Papua New Guinea, Father Alvarado indicated that it is a Church with many rituals and dances, born from a rural world of jungle, rivers, fishing, and hunting.
“We missionaries have a province with more than 115 missionaries, all natives, and there are several congregations in the Church of Papua New Guinea. It is a very simple people in that sense, but very multicultural, multilingual, multi-coloured. It is difficult to describe in words, but there is a rhythm of time where what we say in the missions becomes evident: the people have the time, and we have the clocks. For them, time is always present. That is the great people of New Guinea.”