Tonga’s Cardinal Mafi sees the growth of Mormonism in his country as “a wake-up call for all churches and especially for our local Catholic churches.” According to official Mormon statistics, there are over 64,000 people in Tonga today who are Mormon equivalent to around 60% of the total population of Tonga (approximately 107,000 people). This Read more
Tonga’s Cardinal Mafi wants to rebuild the island’s Catholic primary school system. He says reviving the system would require a lot of money. The church is not financially prepared for the task. August last year marked 150 years since Fr Lamaze established St Stanislaus College and a primary school at ‘Ahopanilolo in 1865. From 1865 Read more
The 175th Anniversary of the Catholic Church in Tonga was celebrated with a mass led by Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi at Pangaimotu Island. At this site a white cross that marks the place where the first mass celebrated in Tonga took place on 2 July 1842. Pangaimotu is a small island in the Tongatapu Read more
Tonga’s Cardinal Mafi is recovering in Auckland after he was rushed to the Middlemore Hospital last weekend. On Monday night the Counties Manukau Health Board said Mafi’s condition was stable His condition is not believed to be serious and he will probably be discharged in the next day or so. A spokesperson from the Catholic Read more
Concerns have been raised over the appointments by Pope Francis of cardinals from very small nations like Tonga. In an article in the National Catholic Register, Rome correspondent Edward Pentin wrote that Francis’s choice of cardinals is among the indicators of his pontificate’s direction. Pentin noted that Francis has chosen not to award “so many Read more
Cardinal Soane Patita Mafi was welcomed during an ava ceremony at Leauva’a, a village near Apia, in Samoa last Monday. Mafi was on his way to Tokelau to attend the church’s 150th anniversary celebrations there. The highest form of Samoan traditional welcome, the ava (kava) ceremony was presided over by the chiefs, orators, taupou (chiefly women) and Read more
In his first public speech in Tonga, Cardinal Mafi told thousands of listeners that he believed he had become the Catholic church’s youngest cardinal because he was named after John the Baptist. Mafi was responding to a question asked by many Tongans when news about his elevation broke in the kingdom: How did the tiny Read more
Last Friday hundreds of people gathered at the Basilica of St Anthony of Padua in Nuku’alofa and then marched to the Royal Palace to present the traditional “hala” of the Diocese of Tonga and Niue to His Majesty King Tupou VI. Lau teau ne nau ‘i he fakatu’uta hala e Siasi Katolika The ceremony took Read more
The two recently appointed Pacific cardinals have been assigned to Roman Curia offices. Pope Francis named Cardinal John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand, to be a member of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Cardinal Soane Mafi of Tonga was named a member of the Read more
Tonga’s Cardinal Mafi has written a letter giving the reasons the Catholic church does not support the Government’s decision to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of any form of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW]. Mafi says all forms of discrimination against women are already clear enough in Tonga’s laws and are forbidden in Christian churches. He Read more