By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service • Posted September 10, 2024

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (CNS) — Building enthusiasm for living and sharing the Christian faith is not a matter of “techniques” but of being joyful and serving others, Pope Francis said.

In an afternoon devoted to the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea Sept. 7, the pope visited with some of the most vulnerable members of society, the Catholics who care for them, and with the country’s bishops, priests, religious, seminarians and catechists.

He started at the Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, meeting some 800 students as well as children who were living on the streets and children and adults with disabilities who are assisted by the Callan Services network.

Clemens, who cannot hear and signed while his sister, Genevieve, spoke, said to the pope, “Holy Father, I would like to ask you, first: Why do we have to suffer with our disability? Two: Why am I not able like others? Three: Why this suffering? Four: Is there hope for us, too?”

A young girl said that just having the meeting showed how much the pope loves the street children, “even though we are not productive, sometimes we are troublemakers, we roam around the streets and become (a) burden for others.”

“I would like to ask you Holy Father, why we do not have opportunities like other kids do and how we can make ourselves useful to make our world more beautiful and happy even if we live in abandonment and poverty?” she asked.

Calling the children’s questions “challenging,” the pope responded that every person is unique, and each has talents and difficulties, but God has a mission for each person based on loving others and knowing how to accept love.

“To give love, always, and to welcome with open arms the love we receive from the people we care about: this is the most beautiful and most important thing in our life, in any condition and for any person — even for the pope,” he told the children.

“None of us are a ‘burden,’ as you said,” the pope responded. “We are all beautiful gifts from God, a treasure for one another!”

Pope Francis ended the afternoon at the city’s Shrine of Mary Help of Christians by listening to churchworkers share the joys and challenges of their ministries, including efforts to help people — usually women or children — who endure torture and even face death after being accused of witchcraft.

Sister Lorena Jenal, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Divine Providence, told Pope Francis about one of the 250 women her House of Hope has helped.

“Maria came to us in 2017,” Sister Jenal said. “She was so badly tortured and burnt that we did not know if we could save her life.”

But, she said, “today she is working in our team standing up for human rights and the dignity and equality of women. She witnesses to the importance of love and forgiveness among all people.”

Father Emmanuel Moku, a self-described “late vocation” who was ordained 12 years ago at the age of 52, told the pope that “my clan expects a man to become a father and to work and feed his people. As a seminarian, I was therefore viewed as unfruitful. This made me feel hopeless.”

But after ordination his family was proud to have a priest in the clan, he said. “Only then was I relieved of the pressure of my cultural norms.”

Grace Wrakia, a laywoman who is a member of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, told the pope that she is not sure how long it will take for the church in Papua New Guinea to become truly synodal.

“But it would only take a few men in a strongly paternal society such as mine to believe in and support a woman in order to see her rise above her traditional status in society and bring about change,” she said.

“I want to see change where women are partners and cooperators, where young people are not ignored or neglected but received with open hearts and minds, where priests and religious work as partners and not as competitors, where priests and consecrated men are not regarded as ‘big men’ but as servant leaders,” she said.

Pope Francis encouraged all of them to hold fast and keep trying, inspired by the missionaries who arrived in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1800s. “The first steps of their ministry were not easy. Indeed, some attempts failed. However, they did not give up; with great faith, apostolic zeal and many sacrifices, they continued to preach the Gospel and serve their brothers and sisters, starting again many times whenever they failed.”

More than anything, the pope said, those who truly want to be missionary disciples of Jesus must start at “the peripheries of this country” with “people belonging to the most deprived segments of urban populations, as well as those who live in the most remote and abandoned areas, where sometimes basic necessities are lacking.”

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition, sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” the pope said. “The church desires especially to be close to these brothers and sisters, because in them Jesus is present in a special way.”