"He's going beyond that and wanting a fairer representation of the church," he said in an extended interview with Alex Perrottet on Dateline Pacific.

"He wants to say the church is for the poor, and that's how he sees it in his mind and that's how he wants to show it now in practice."

"Not only through the traditional places, but even to reach out to those small places."

Ribat said, "I see it this way. What he's been kind of advocating is really to be prepared."

"We hear of this migration and war and all this, and people are kind of into a situation where they are really suffering and need their basic needs in life - food, water, clothing and shelter, all these."

"Now, also on the other hand, here in the Pacific we are faced with a very high risk situation and we say that it is the result of climate change, and that is the high rise sea level, and that is: islands are disappearing slowly, washing way."

When he was asked what the Church was doing to alleviate poverty in Papua New Guinea Ribat listed a number of things the church is doing to "be prepared"

He said that the Catholic church does not confine its activities to its own members - "but for everyone, eh. Because things like this do happen and it affects all, from other churches and so on"

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• Image: kiz-online.de

O'Neill said the elevation of Ribat to Cardinal on November 19 will be a time of national pride.

"We congratulate Sir John and again thank him for the work he has undertaken that led him to such a high position in the Catholic Church.

"Cardinal Ribat will continue to provide spiritual guidance and direction, as he has done through his life, but now to a much larger flock.

"His new role is an enormous undertaking and will change the lives of so many around the world."

O'Neill said he anticipates the nation will unite in prayer when the ceremony takes place to elevate Sir John to his new position, and he looks forward to the new Cardinal being welcomed home.

"November 19 will be a proud day when the Sir John is elevated to his new position in the Church," the prime minister said.

"We look forward to the next opportunity when Cardinal Ribat is able to celebrate Mass in Papua New Guinea.

"I hope we can have a series of large outdoor services that will bring our people together in prayer."

"Our new Cardinal is an example of what can be achieved through commitment and dedication."

"I congratulate Sir John Ribat, our first Cardinal, for the his good work and for the confidence that his Holiness the Pope, has shown in his character and devotion."

Speaking about his appointment Ribat says Pope Francis is trying to get Christians to see the church in a new way.

"The church is for the poor, that's how he sees it and that's I think what's in his mind and how he wants to show it, not only to the traditional places but even to reach out to the small, small places."

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• pm.gov.pg
• Image: portmoresby.anglican.org

Ribat was taking part in an emotionally charged press conference in Rome on Monday.

Catholic leaders representing every continent on earth made an urgent appeal to the global negotiators and political officials who will gather in Paris in December for the United Nation's 21st climate summit - COP21.

Their message: After two decades of abysmal failure, don't screw up this time.

"What we are asking for is a fair, legally binding and truly transformational agreement by all the nations on earth."

Speaking for Oceania Ribat said, "God gave us the same dignity as all other countries and continents in the world. But we belong to those groups most affected by climate change and sea-level rise."

He explained that flooding and drought in some island nations is already reducing the ability to grow crops and forcing natives to flee.

This is resulting in a little publicised immigration crisis — far from the one occurring in Europe.

He noted, many people however are reluctant to abandon their sinking homelands, fearful of what awaits them as eco-refugees — discrimination, xenophobia and cultural isolation.

"This is my urgent call," Ribat said to those who will negotiate in Paris: "Guarantee the future of Oceania. Change society to a low-carbon lifestyle."

The heads of six continental bishops' conferences, along with leaders of national conferences in the United States and Canada and of the Catholic patriarchs of the Orient, made the collective call to the negotiating parties who are set to arrive Nov. 30 in Paris for the annual United Nations climate change conference, formally known as the 21st Conference of the Parties, COP 21.

Each of the five speakers cited Pope Francis' landmark encyclical on climate change and the environment — Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home — as inspiration for their unprecedented call to action.

Read the Press release from the Bishops.

Source

• pulitzercenter.org
• ncronline
• Image: ncronline

He says that the speaker's plan is backed by a small group of people who do not represent the majority of the country's churches.

Ribat told Radio Australia that such an effort should be "solely the church's and not the government's."

Gregory Poling is an expert on Southeast Asia with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

The late Rev. Gene Hood donated the Bible.

Hood, 77, did not live to see the fuss.

He died suddenly of a heart attack, just days after handing over the Bible.

He was an Indianapolis based preacher and globetrotting missionary.

He handed out a lot of Bibles in his life time — in Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Korea, South Africa.

He oversaw the dispensing of more than a million of them in Russia alone, according to his obituary.

The Bible was not just any Bible.

It was a King James first edition believed published in 1611.

One expert told the ABC the Bible is worth $63,000 to $95,000.

Source

• USAToday.com
• Radio Australia
• Image: pngloop.s3.amazonaws.com

In an interview on Radio Australia he said that he hoped that the circumstances surrounding the executions in Indonesia will bring "more light to our into our leadership."

In 2013 Ribat spoke about the church's opposition to the death penalty at a press conference in Port Moresby.

He acknowledged the immense pressure on the Government to curb law and order problems and its moves to introduce maximum penalties to crack down on the country's serious law and order problems.

Speaking on behalf of the other churches, he said the church would live by its principles.

"No life will be taken. We do not have the right to do that but we do have the right to better a person's life," the Archbishop said.

Ribat said there was moral breakdown in PNG society and called on the Government to work with churches to address the serious law and order problems by properly funding and strengthening the law enforcing systems from the top right down to the local level governments and get perpetrators to answer for their crimes.

He said the judicial system needed to be strong and firm in addressing serious law and orders problems.

Bishop Aronold Orowae, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, has issued a letter laying out the reasons behind the Bishops' opposition to the re introduction of the death penalty.

Capital punishment has not been carried out in PNG for more than 50 years, but was re-activated two years ago when the law was amended to include more offences.

Since then, 13 people have been waiting on death row, but lack of infrastructure has meant there has been no method to enact the capital punishment.

Both Indonesia and Thailand have made offers of financial assistance and expertise.

Source

• Radio Australia International
• Island Business
• asopa.typepad.com
• Image: abc.net.au

But The mainstream churches in PNG are working with the United Nations and non-government organisations to help people access services.

Catholic archbishop John Ribat is a member of the Christian Leaders Alliance.

"Our concern as churches is to come together to address this HIV and AIDS and fight against the discrimination that continues to divide us," he said.

Pastor Godfrey Wippon heads PNG's Revival Centres and says his is the fastest growing religious movement in the country.

"It is growing because of healings, miracles, wonders, science happening in this ministry. The Lord heals," he said.

Pastor Wippon believes baptism and prayer can cure AIDS and even bring the dead back to life.

Health workers have told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that revivalists visit hospitals and clinics telling HIV patients to throw away their medication.

In a case that shocked many, one of PNG's first openly HIV-positive women, Helen Samilo, fell prey to the revivalist message.

Even though she was working as an advocate for anti-retroviral treatment, Ms Samilo joined a revivalist church, stopped taking medication, and died in August last year.

"It's just the revival church that told her not to take her medication. They are responsible for her death," Ms Anton, a friend of Ms Samilo, said.

"It's just the revival church that told her not to take her medication. They are responsible for her death," said Margaret Anton, president of Women Affected by HIV/AIDS, PNG.

Pastor Wippon sees Ms Samilo's death differently.

"She has been healed spiritually. She died physically, naturally. But spiritually she's right with the Lord," he said.

Source

• Radio Australia News
• Image: abc.net.au

There were 82 Bishops from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, the countries of the Pacific, and Australia and New Zealand in Wellington last week for the assembly of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania

The Assembly takes place every four years in a different part of Oceania and the next assembly will be held in Papua New Guinea in 2018.

During the Assembly

• Bishop Eugene Hurley spoke about the situation of detainees in Australian detention centres.
• Bishops from Papua New Guinea and the Bishop of Tarawa in Nauru spoke of the detention centres within their countries and the effects of these on local populations of Manus Island and Nauru.
• Bishop Barry Jones and Mike Stopforth presented a session on the earthquakes and their impact on the Christchurch city and the Diocese. They spoke of the ongoing effects on the people of Christchurch, together with the rebuilding being undertaken by the Church and throughout the city.
• Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva spoke on reading the signs of the Fiji times, and the pastoral implications of the political changes that have occurred in Fiji over the last fifteen years.

The Bishops also discussed topics that will be considered at the Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome in October this year. In workshop sessions, the bishops heard presentations and engaged in discussion with presenters on young people and the Catholicism.

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops' Conference
• Image: PNGEdge

It will spend the next few weeks consulting non-government organisations, businesses and other community groups.

The panel's deputy chair is the Archbishop of Port Moresby John Ribat.

He says they have their work cut out for them.

It's expected to deliver its completed report to the Chief Migration Officer by mid-May.

The Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato says the panel will focus on resettling those deemed to be genuine refugees in a "Melanesian way".

All asylum seekers held in an Australian detention centre on Manus Island who are found to be refugees will be resettled in Papua New Guinea, the governments of both countries have agreed.

Writing in the Catholic Report PNG Fr GIorgio Licini says:

"The idea if resettling thousands of Middle East, Asian and African refugees in Papua New Guinea is simply chilling. Think of the enormous cultural divide; the limited job opportunities; poor housing; different agricultural ways and traditions to name a few.

Think also of the fact that affluent countries such as Australia can always accompany the resettlement process with psychological support, language courses, proper medical care (especially for children), a different cultural and religious sensitivity.

The formal resettlement of refugees in a developing country such as Papua New Guinea is something totally new. We never heard of it taking place, let's say, in Brazil, or Nigeria, or the Philippines, or Vanuatu." Read more

Listen to interview with Archbishop Ribat

Source

• SBS
• Image: PNGEDGE

In PNG, Christian leaders have asked their Prime Minister O'Neill to reconsider the refugee deal he signed with Australia.

During a press conference last Wednesday in Port Moresby, the PNG Council of Churches, and the PNG Christian Leaders Alliance on HIV/AIDS said there needed to be proper consultation with the people through the churches before such deals were signed.

Catholic Archbishop John Ribat said, "The asylum seekers are interested in settling in Australia, not PNG. We have been forced to take in something we are not capable of handling.

In Samoa the Pacific Conference of Churches general secretary, Rev. Francois Pihaatae called on Australia and Papua New Guinea to reveal the terms of their asylum seeker processing and resettlement agreement.

Source

• Ecumenical News
• Image: The Guardian

Catholic Archbishop of Port Moresby, John Ribat, flanked by the General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in PNG and Solomon Islands Fr Victor Roche, announced the church's position at a press conference in Port Moresby on Wednesday 1 May.

Archbishop Ribat said he acknowledged the immense pressure on the Government to curb law and order problems and its moves to introduce maximum penalties to crack down on the country's serious law and order problems.

Speaking on behalf of the other churches, he said the church would live by its principles.

"No life will be taken. We do not have the right to do that but we do have the right to better a person's life," the Archbishop said.

Papua New Guinea's government is considering backing the death penalty in a bid to deter crimes against women and "sorcery"-related killings.

On the same day Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said that legislation will be introduced when Parliament resumes in two weeks that would allow the country to implement the death penalty.

"Among the methods discussed include death by firing squad, which was considered more humane and inexpensive than other methods," O'Neill said in a statement following a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. He said an "execution center" would be attached to a new prison to be built in a remote location.

Source

• Island Business
• Stuff.co.nz
• Washington Post
• Image: ResourcesMMC.com

"I see the new Pope as somebody who could lead while the church is in turmoil, therefore, I ask people to pray for him. We are journeying together and sharing the same faith, and I think he believes in the spirit of unity," Ribat said.

Prime Minister Peter O'Neill extended the nation's warmest congratulations and best wishes and said: "His election as Pope is a momentous occasion for the Catholic church in his home country, Argentina, and for the church throughout the developing world.

"Just as the Catholic church is the largest church in Argentina, it is the largest church in Papua New Guinea".

Source

• The National
• Mirror News

Archbishop John Ribat says Attorney-General Kerenga Kua's plan to activate the never-before-used law is the wrong way to deter crime and may encourage payback as families seek revenge for an execution.

"The payback system can escalate. Killing will give rise to more killing," he said.

The General secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Fr Victor Roche, has also expressed concern at the suggestion made by the Attorney-General

Roche said the church supported the dignity of a human person and a death penalty would deny that if implemented.
"The death penalty is not the answer to the law and order problems in our country," he said.

The view against death penalty is also shared by National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop.
The human rights lawyer argued that there was no proof that capital punishment was the model to monitor successfully law and order problems in a society.

Source

• Social Concerns -A Commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference PNG/SI
• News.com.au
• Image: Resources MMC.org
  

The letter says "Any priest who enters politics will be suspended from exercising his priestly ministry, a suspension that extends at least two years beyond the time when the priest finally withdraws from politics."

The letter is signed by the President of the Episcopal Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands Archbishop John Ribat of Port Moresby. It notes that "some of our brother priests are planning to run for political office in the 2012 Papua New Guinea National Election."

"This is a great disappointment for us bishops and for the majority of our Catholic people. We believe that most priests, religious and lay people share our disappointment: the choice by a priest to enter politics is a betrayal of the people ...like in the Gospel story (Jn 10, 12-13) in which a shepherd abandons the flock entrusted to him."

The Bishops recognize the importance of political commitment: "It is entirely appropriate that qualified Catholic lay people represent the Church through direct political involvement and thereby find creative ways to apply the Church's social teaching in shaping specific policies that promote the common good." However, they continue, "running for public office, as well as to actively campaigning for a political party or candidate, is contrary to the vocation to the priesthood." Priests, in fact, "must proclaim relevant moral principles and explain Catholic social teaching to all people, especially to politicians and political parties, suggesting that the Church endorses only one or the other among many morally good ways of organizing government or of seeking to address particular social issues."

John Momis, President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, co-writer of the Constitution of Papua New Guinea, and formerly Governor of Bougainville from 1999 until 2005 and Papua New Guinea's ambassador to the People's Republic of China, was a priest from 1970 until 1993

Source

• Fides Service
• Wikipedia
• Image: Blog Mente Pesante

The churches suggested the grand coalition on last Thursday as the two groups claiming they have the right to run the government remain at loggerheads.

Archbishop John Ribat says they envisage all politicians working together with no opposition.