Peter ToRot Canonized as Papua New Guinea’s First Saint in Historic Ceremony

Thou­sands cel­e­brate across the coun­try and in Rome after Pope Leo canon­ised Peter ToRot in what the prime min­is­ter called a ‘his­toric moment of pride, faith and inspi­ra­tion

Papua New Guinea cel­e­brat­ed a his­toric moment of “nation­al pride” as the country’s first saint was canon­ised, with joy­ful ser­vices in church­es and com­mu­ni­ties across the Pacif­ic nation.

Peter ToRot was killed in prison in 1945 for stand­ing up for monog­a­mous mar­riage at a time when polygamy was prac­tised. He was one of sev­en peo­ple canon­ised at a Mass in St Peter’s Square held by Pope Leo on Sun­day, in a cer­e­mo­ny put in motion by Pope Fran­cis in one of his final acts

Many peo­ple trav­elled from Papua New Guinea to Rome, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple attend­ed the ser­vice on Sun­day. Cer­e­monies were held across Papua New Guinea and thou­sands were believed to have attend­ed ser­vices in the cap­i­tal, Port Mores­by.

Prime min­is­ter James Marape described it as a “his­toric moment of pride, faith and inspi­ra­tion for Papua New Guinea and our peo­ple.”

More than 90% of Papua New Guinea’s 12 mil­lion res­i­dents call them­selves Chris­t­ian, but the reli­gion sits along­side a large num­ber of local beliefs, cus­toms and rites. About a quar­ter of Papua New Guineans are Catholic

We have our saint, he stands as a mod­el for all of us to turn away from evil that may exist in our lives,” Fr Ambrose Pereira from Mary Help of Chris­tians, Saba­ma in Port Mores­by, told the Guardian.

Fr Pereira said hun­dreds of Catholics gath­ered across Port Mores­byin their respec­tive parish­es for the last three days, to cel­e­brate and high­light the life of ToRot.

“Peter ToRot has evoked in us a sense of right liv­ing and good con­duct, espe­cial­ly in our rela­tion­ships par­tic­u­lar­ly with our spous­es encour­ag­ing respect and dig­ni­ty,” Fr Pereira said.

Around 1943, the destruc­tion of the church saw him build a “bush church” out­side the vil­lage to hold secret ser­vices; he kept records of bap­tisms and wed­dings there. ToRot and oth­ers con­tin­ued their work until he was impris­oned and killed by lethal injec­tion by the Japan­ese in 1945.

Fr John Glynn, a high­ly respect­ed Catholic priest in PNG from Jubilee Catholic sec­ondary school, said the canon­i­sa­tion of ToRot was of “huge sig­nif­i­cance to the Chris­t­ian peo­ple of Papua New Guinea”.

“He lead his peo­ple in wor­ship and encour­aged them to be faith­ful to their
Chris­t­ian beliefs and to live in hope,” said Glynn, who start­ed his priest­hood jour­ney in the region where ToRot was from and has served in many vil­lages in the area

Fr Lawrence Arock­iaraj, the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Catholic Bish­ops Con­fer­ence of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, hailed the “canon­i­sa­tion as a moment of nation­al pride and spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance.

“Saint Peter TeRot’s life of faith, courage, and devo­tion to fam­i­ly serves as a mod­el not only for Papua New Guinea, but for the world and the uni­ver­sal church” Fr Lawrence said.

Josephine Thom from Madang said the canon­i­sa­tion marked a “proud moment for our fam­i­ly”. She added: “Saint Peter ToRot’s faith strength­ens our hope and encour­ages us to teach our chil­dren to live a life of ser­vice, hon­esty, and devo­tion to God.”