“You might be doing one thing lovely, and it’s important that you’re not left alone,” Francis advised the group, which the Vatican estimated at 20,000, of missionaries and Catholic devoted from Vanimo in a gathering exterior the city’s one-storey, wood-panelled cathedral parish.
“You reside in a powerful land, enriched by an excellent number of vegetation and birds,” mentioned the pope. “The fantastic thing about the panorama is matched by the fantastic thing about a neighborhood the place folks love each other”.
The Rev. Tomas Ravaioli, one of many missionaries, mentioned he couldn’t consider the pope had really come to Vanimo. “He’s protecting his promise to come back,” mentioned the priest. “We can not consider it. At his age he’s making an infinite effort.”
A sprawling nation of mountains, jungle and rivers, PNG is house to greater than 800 languages and lots of of tribes, together with dozens of uncontacted peoples.
As with different occasions all through his keep within the nation, Francis was greeted in a area exterior the cathedral with a conventional dance from a bunch sporting feathered headdresses and straw skirts.
The pope additionally heard 4 testimonies from native Catholics. Steven Abala, a lay instructor, described how some rural communities, minimize off from roads, should wait weeks or months between visits by monks.
Abala introduced Francis with a headdress with yellow and brown feathers, which the pope tried on.
