Growth of Morata church

By Fr VINOD D’MELLO
THE seed of Catholic faith was planted in Morata in NCD around the year 1969.
The few Catholics residing around Morata, which was part of Waigani parish (Mary Queen of the Pacific) made known their desire to have a church of their own in Morata area.
Since there were very few families, the parish priest of Waigani agreed to have Sunday services at the residence of Morris Tokai at Lobu Street. The kitchen was their confessional.
As time went by, the population steadily increased and there were other churches operating in Morata who held services at the community hall.
In 1978, Morris Tokai, who became the first chairman of the parish, went to see the then Archbishop of Port Moresby Peter Kurongku.
Seeing the enthusiasm of the people, Kurongku gave the green light to approach the parish priest of Waigani. The first priest who cared for the Morata community was Fr Peter Clune, MSC. He celebrated Sunday masses for the people of Morata at the community hall, which was a common place for all the churches to conduct Sunday service.
In the absence of Fr Clune it was Fr Frank Dinine, MSC who was giving pastoral care for the people of Morata.
Seeing the need for catechesis and preparation for sacraments the priest appointed Pauline Amenai (first catechist of Morata) and sent her to Sivaria Namona pastoral center to prepare herself. As the desire to have a parish of their own grew stronger, Amenai wrote a letter to Archbishop Korongku asking him to help them to build a church.
At the same time the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) sisters started coming to Morata for their pastoral exposure and Sr Dane Marie took a special interest in the people, encouraging them to pray and not give up.
People from Goilala area who were living around Morata began to raise funds by showing movies and doing other activities. Looking at the persistence of people and their desire to have a church of their own, the parish priest of Waigani took the initiative to build the church, with the help of Erick Kataia, Morris Tokai, Christopher Kaini, Emilio Bauai and others.
Once the roof of the church was completed in around 1981, Sunday masses were held in the church.

Why Martin de Porres?

Morata was a remote place on the outskirts of Port Moresby, unknown to many until recently. OLSH sisters were the first ones to come to Morata looking for a place for their formation house for junior sisters.
It was a place of settlements for people outside of Port Moresby. There were few people from Goilala, a place in Berina diocese, who had their settlement in Morata. They are the ones who first made known their desire to have a small chapel where they could have their worship.
After consultation with the parish priest at Waigani, with the help of other settlers they built a small chapel and called it St Martin de Porres.
One of the reasons for choosing this name was that de Porres had the same skin colour as the people of Papua New Guinea, and they were inspired by the work that he did in Peru among the poor.
Morata was a substation of Our Lady of the Pacific Parish in Waigani so whenever there was a priest available he would come on Sundays to celebrate mass with the people.
In recent years, people from almost all the provinces of Papua New Guinea, especially from the highlands region, have settled in Morata. Many of these people came to Port Moresby looking for job opportunities. Accommodation in Port Moresby is very expensive, therefore they settled in places like Morata.
Today, Morata is no more a remote place; it is thickly populated. Most of the people are settlers from the highlands. They are poor and they sell small things at roadside markets to make their living.
The youth, mostly uneducated, get into all kinds of illegal activities like selling drugs to make their livelihood.
We wanted to rejuvenate the parish community, and bring all the Catholics and all those who think they do not belong anywhere, back to the church.

Montfort fathers in Morata

Over the years, Montfort missionaries based in Kiunga, Western have been talking about having a house in Port Moresby, since it is the capital where most of the offices are located. Kiunga also gets most of its supplies from Port Moresby.
Ever since the Montfort missionaries came to Papua New Guinea, we have been depending on other congregations to look after our new missionaries arriving in Port Moresby.
Or whenever some guests would come we had to request someone to pick them from the airport and accommodate them.
Montfort missionaries were also talking about welcoming local candidates and a formation house. During the recent meeting, which was held in Kiunga, we decided to start the formation.
Since the archdiocese was ready to give us a parish in Port Moresby, (which is Morata) we decided to accept the parish and also have a formation house in the same campus.

Blessing of the renovated church

The Archbishop of Port Moresby, Cardinal Sir John Ribat and the Apostolic Nuncio of PNG and Solomon Islands, Kurian Mathew Vayalunkal, along with 12 priests and representatives from 15 religious congregations were present on April 28 to take part in the blessing of the newly renovated and extended St Martin de Porres Church.
The ceremony began with the Chimbu community with their traditional singsing and welcomed Cardinal Ribat and the Apostolic Nuncio.
The cutting of the ribbon and the opening of the curtain at the entrance of the church by Cardinal Ribat was accompanied with a loud cry of joy by the Western Highlands mothers.
After the entrance procession led by Enga mothers, the cardinal welcomed the people for the celebration saying, “Today is the great day in the history of the St Martin de Pores Parish, Morata, as the community of Morata has come together to celebrate the fruit of their hard work.
“It is this beautiful church. They are filled with joy and gratitude to God for this beautiful gift they have received from Him.
“It is not only people coming together and different cultures coming together to mark this occasion. Because they experienced that this is the fruit of their community life,” Cardinal Ribat said.
Vayalunkal told the Morata parishioners: “Life is like a book. The first chapter and the last chapter are already written by God and the between chapters are to be written by each one of us. So when we try to write those in-between chapters, this church becomes an influential element of our story.
“If we are not able to become the temple of God as individuals or persons, our visits to this church, our celebrations in this church are all in vain.
‘We are celebrating the blessing of our renovated church building but what is much more important are the people who use this church building. It is they who give it its significance and not the other way round,” he said.
“The temple was not simply a place where prayers were offered and answered. The temple was the place where the heart, and mind, and soul of the person doing the praying were shaped and formed.
“In fact, God sets down four guidelines, a kind of precondition for hearing and answering our prayers.
“First we must humble ourselves in the presence of God and recognise that without God we can do nothing. The second thing, we must pray.
As a third guideline, we need to discover God’s plans in our life. Fourthly, God wants us to stop doing definitively the things that take us away from him.
“If we are faithful to these four guidelines, God will hear our prayers. He will forgive our sins and He will bless all of us and he will heal our land.
“These walls of the church cannot go out and bring people to the love of Christ. We are the church, and we have to go out to the crowd. We have to go out to this world, and invite them to this place of worship through our Christian witness and we are called to bring them here.”
Cardinal Ribat said, “The church building construction has brought people together to keep away the differences of clans, tribes, provinces and regions they belong to. They have worked together as a community of Morata to complete this church building and the finished building is the witness of their togetherness.
“I pray that this togetherness helps them to live a good life as individuals and build up better communities.”

•  Fr Vinod D’mello is the parish priest at Martin de Porres Parish, Morata.