Rare papal visit crowds Papua New Guinea capital

PORT MORESBY (AFP) — Over mountains, by air, and by sea, pilgrims flocked to Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) capital ahead of Pope Francis’s arrival Friday on a landmark four-day visit.

Once-dusty roads in the capital Port Moresby have been swept, street hawkers cleared away and yellow-and-white flags of the Holy See strung from lamp posts, where they flutter under the warm breeze of the Coral Sea.

The pontiff will spend his time in one of the Pacific’s poorest and most troubled nations addressing bishops, meeting street children and holding mass for tens of thousands of his flock.

Among the thousands already gathered is a group of 43 pilgrims who traveled for weeks by foot from the north coast to the south, traversing dense jungle and the formidable central cordillera.

They came from Morobe to the capital, according to the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG, a journey of more than 200 kilometers as the crow flies.

The pilgrimage was less arduous for others, but no less transformative.

Sophie Balbal traveled from the island of New Britain to represent a group of mothers.

“This is my very first time in my life to travel on a plane and to come to Port Moresby,” she told Agence France-Presse excitedly.

“Whatever message he passes on to us, I will try my best to pass it on to my fellow mothers, all the mamas in our parish.”

An estimated 98 percent of Papua New Guineans are Christian and about 25 percent are Catholic.

But those figures belie the rich blend of beliefs and customs in a nation that has more than 850 distinctive ethnolinguistic groups.

Many Papua New Guineans believe deeply in a Christian god as well as a panoply of animist beliefs that sit alongside still-strong Indigenous customs.

That blended identity is embodied in Prime Minister James Marape, the son of a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, and a leader who rarely answers his phone on the Saturday Sabbath.

Marape is also a leader of the Huli people, one of PNG’s largest highland tribes.