News letter:
PNG TANGET
No. 27 Vol.VII/3 August 2005 BISHOPS MEET THE POPE The Bishops of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands made their five yearly visit to Rome. The visit always involves preparing a report of the state of the dioceses and discussing issues of the dioceses with the Holy Father and the various departments of the Vatican. This visit was a historic one, not only because it was an occasion to meet with the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, but also because it was the first visit to include an Anglican Bishop as a guest of the Catholic Bishops Conference. The idea of inviting an Anglican bishop to accompany the Catholic bishops on their visit to Rome had been suggested officially, but until now no Bishops Conference had taken up the suggestion directly. Addressing the bishops of Papua New Guinea the Pope appealed to priests not to confuse their ministry with a political career. Since the independence in 1975 there has been quite a number of priests, former priests and seminarians in high political positions, like ministers, members of parliament, provincial governors. The bishops now discourage priests to stand for elections and suspend those who are standing as candidates from their priestly ministry. The present auxiliary bishop of Port Moresby, Cherubim Dambui served as priest for one term as elected governor of the East Sepik Province about 25 years ago. In Papua New Guinea, a country of 5.5 million inhabitants, the Catholic Church comprise 28% of the population and is the nation’s largest denomination Bishop Henry van Lieshout intended to join the PNG bishops in Rome while on leave in the Netherlands, but he had to cancel his visit for reasons of health. He will arrive in Port Moresby on 19 August and after a short break in the Mariannhill College fly to Lae. FROM THE DIOCESE OF LAE * After having attended the meeting of the Council of the Congregation in Rome Fr. Anthony Mulderink returned to Lae at the beginning of June. At the mean time Bishop Henry van Lieshout travelled in the opposite direction to the Netherlands accompanied by Br. Werner Hupperich who was going on leave in Germany. * When Fr. Ansgar Haeusler returned from a medical check up in Germany at the beginning of July the personnel situation in the diocese improved, so that Fr. Sido van der Werf could take off for his postponed home leave in the Netherlands. Fr. Ansgar’s car of which he was robbed under gun point just before going on leave, has not been found yet. Fr. Sido had also bad luck just before going on leave. Criminals broke into his house at St. Joseph’s station while he was staying overnight in the Mariannhill House in town and stole all valuable items, lap top, a keyboard, radio etc. * The golden jubilee of profession of Sr. Godelief Leyten CPS is going to be a great celebration on August 19th. Since her arrival in Lae more than 40 years ago Sr. Godelief has always been involved in working with and for women and family life. Now the women have a golden opportunity to come from all over the diocese to joyfully celebrate with Sr. Godelief and the whole mission staff in gratitude for what she has done for them. * Fr. Geoffrey Lee, secretary of the Commission for Social Communications of the PNG Bishops Conference went to the Good Shepherd Seminary, to give a course in social communications. This seminary in the Western Highlands is for diocesan seminarians who are doing three year religious studies before continuing theology at the CTI in Port Moresby MARIANNHILL Pt. MORESBY Fr. Chris Blouin flew for a home leave to Canada on June 2nd. A few days earlier the staff of the Catholic Theological Institute (C.T.I.) and the board of rectors of the ten religious colleges on the campus had organized a farewell party for Fr. Chris who was to terminate his office of rector of the Mariannhill College. He has been in charge of the CMM community in Port Moresby since 2002. The first year the seminarians were accommodated in a house rented from the St. Ann Sisters in Gerehu, a suburb of Port Moresby. The students had to be driven daily by minibus to the C.T.I. at a distance of 20 km. In the second year the community could move nearer to the campus of the Institute where they were accommodated in the De La Salle College, the former novitiate of the De La Salle Brothers. During the year 2003 the new CMM seminary was constructed under the supervision of Fr. Chris. He has deserved well of the CMM province during his term of office as co-founder and first rector of the Mariannhill College. Fr. Chris will return in September and take on a new assignment in Lae. * Since Fr. Chris’ successor as rector had not arrived yet, Fr. Frans Lenssen took care of the house and community besides his teaching job at the faculty until the arrival of Fr. Wojcieck Drazek on July 1st. Fr. Wojtek had just graduated after a year of special training at St. Anselm’s Institute in Margate, South England. Fr. Wojtek was previously parish priest in Bulolo/Wau for two years. * Deacon Daniel Apas and Br. Ludwig Teika ended their 6 months pastoral work in St. Mary’s parishin Lae and St. Francis parish in Wau. For the remaining months both will be assigned to new tasks. CTI OPEN DAY For the first time the Catholic Theological Institute will be holding a “CTI Open Day” at the end of the two weeks trimester break in August. By holding this event, it is the intention to make the institute better known to the wider society and build relationships, promote appreciation of culture and seek financial support for its various needs, especially for improving student facilities. The day will be opened with a prayer service followed by an audio-visual presentation of the CTI and seminaries produced by Fr. Wojtek. Then there will be a guided tour through the institute and the campus. After the performance of traditional dances the special raffle will be drawn before the closing of the day. Dictionary of the Mandok language The island Mandok has its own language shared with some other neighbouring coral islets. This language is one of the 770 different languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. Those tiny language groups are in danger of gradually facing out. For this reason a small team has started to compile a dictionary of the Mandok language. Members of the team are Mrs. Agnes Keke Hafmans and her brother John Aipake, Mrs Ali Pomponio, an American anthropologist who spent 14 months researching at Mandok in the 1980ies. Fr. Anthony Mulderink who was parish priest at Mandok for 12 years about 35 years ago joint the translation team. He made already earlier a basic word list and a simple grammar. This lexicon is meant to help the school children not to forget their mother tongue as an essential element of their rich cultural heritage. World Youth Day in Germany A group of 25 Papua New Guineans flew to Germany to attend the World Youth Day in Cologne. Among them are also two seminarians of the C.T.I in Port Moresby. CURRENT AFFAIRS IN PNG Autonomy for Bougainville. After 15 years of rebellion, violence and misery at the cost of 20.000 lives the province Bougainville, an island between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, has became autonomous. In the presence of the Prime Minister Michael Somare and members of the national government of PNG and dignitaries from all over the world President Joseph Kabui and 40 members of parliament were sworn in on June 15th. But the instigator and the leader of the rebellion Francis Ona still refused to cooperate with the new government while still keeping a part of the island under his control as the self-styled king of the independent kingdom of Me’ekamui. No outsiders are allowed to enter the “no-go-zone”. It all started 15 years ago with a rebellion of the landowners of the area where a rich copper mine was producing the main national income for whole Papua New Guinea. Soon the operation of the mine came to a halt and has never been reopened since. It is part of the new “Kingdom” of King Francis Ona, who sought in vain the recognition by the United Nations which had stationed a peace negotiation mission and soldiers on the island during the last seven years of the crisis. Attempts of the new government for reconciliation with the rebellious leader inviting him to get involved in the set-up of the new autonomous administration of Bougainville failed. Only six weeks after the autonomy celebration Francis Ona died after a short but serious illness. How this untimely dead will have an impact on the further political development is still hard to foresee. His successor has challenged the new autonomous government to let his rebellious movement run Bougainville for three months in order to show that his “independent” government is able to govern the island and also finance it. The Catholic Church of Bougainville (75% Catholics of 160.000 inhabitants) under the leadership of the Dutch Bishop Henk Kronenberg has gone through many hardships during the rebellion since internal and external communication was very difficult. A Guns Control Commission has been set up to travel throughout the country to create awareness among the population about the disastrous consequences of the increasing uncontrolled possession of guns. In many mountain villages there are guns in each\household often acquired with marijuana. During a visit of the Guns Control Commission at the Catholic St. Joseph’s Technical School in Lae students revealed that many people and even some students had guns, mostly home-made, which they kept in their homes for security reasons. One student said his generation was “a frustrated one”. School fees are too high and the prices for their garden products are too low. So they get guns, stand up on the roads and rob the car drivers. In the Highlands whole private armies are equipped with guns for their tribal fights. I will be a difficult job for the government to get this problem under control. Buried after 60 years. A special military funeral service was held at the Port Moresby War Cemetery next to the Mariannhill College for 29 passengers and crew of an Australian Air Force Dakota which crashed on a 4200m high the mountain in West Papua in 1945. The remains of the bodies have recently been recovered from the wreckage of the aircraft and were buried at the War Cemetery in the presence of 55 Australian family members of the victims. ____________________________________ Editor: Frans Lenssen P.O. Box 54 Gordons. National Capital District |
