Pope receives warm nighttime welcome to Papua New Guinea

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (CNS) -- With a 21-cannon salute, Pope Francis was welcomed to Papua New Guinea Sept. 6, the second stop on his four-nation visit to Asia and the Pacific.

After flying five and a half hours from Jakarta, Indonesia, the 87-year-old pope landed at Jacksons International Airport in Port Moresby and was greeted with flowers from children wearing traditional dress.

John Rosso, Papua New Guinea's deputy prime minister, led the official welcome ceremony, which featured the cannon salute, a review of the honor guard, the playing of the Vatican and Papua New Guinean national anthems and the presentation of their respective delegations.

Although the pope landed an hour after sunset, the roads from the airport were lined with thousands of people hoping to see him. Many held long-handled, battery-powered candles.

Unlike Indonesia, where Christians are a small minority, in Papua New Guinea an estimated 98% of the population is Christian. According to Vatican statistics, Catholics represent about 31% of the nation's 8.2 million people.

With Pope Francis the Pacific-island nation was hosting its third papal visit; St. John Paul II visited in 1984 and again in 1995.

Papua New Guinea is known as a land of hundreds of ethnic groups living in remote areas and speaking their own languages; it is rich in natural resources, including gold, copper and natural gas, but one-third of the population lives below the poverty line.

The nation, and particularly Port Moresby, has been plagued by crime and gang violence for decades. In January, riots broke out over a cut in the salaries of public workers.

Pope Francis' itinerary for his trip Sept. 2-13 focused only on the capitals of Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Singapore. But in Papua New Guinea, the pope wants to visit a community of missionaries from Argentina ministering in and around the town of Vanimo in the northwest, so that was added to the schedule.

The trip to the outpost will give Pope Francis an opportunity to pay tribute to the generations of foreign missionaries who have and continue to share the Gospel with the people of Papua New Guinea through their preaching and religious education, but also through their schools, orphanages, hospitals and work for justice and the safeguarding of creation.

Papua New Guinea illustrates the connection Pope Francis often highlights between "the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth," a situation where minerals are extracted, forests denuded and energy supplies sold off to the financial benefit of only a handful of people, leaving the poor with a scarred and barren landscape.