“You’re doing one thing stunning, and it’s important that you’re not left alone,” Francis instructed the gang, 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 amazing number of vegetation and birds,” mentioned the pope. “The fantastic thing about the panorama is matched by the great 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 truly come to Vanimo. “He’s conserving his promise to come back,” mentioned the priest. “We can’t 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 a whole bunch of tribes, together with dozens of uncontacted peoples.
As with different occasions all through his keep within the nation, Francis was greeted in a subject exterior the cathedral with a standard dance from a gaggle 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 clergymen.
Abala introduced Francis with a headdress with yellow and brown feathers, which the pope tried on.