Collaboration with Vatican News<\/a> and L’Osservatore Romano<\/a>. Claudia Torres<\/em><\/p>\n The Catholic Church has played a key role in Papua New Guinea\u2019s education and health sectors, which face numerous challenges due to a lack of government support. It\u2019s what Father Sylvester Warwakai, Provincial Superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Papua New Guinea Province, said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n The Missionaries are currently working in seven dioceses contracted to parish work, teaching and nursing. Most of the parishes where they work have a school attached because, as Father Warwakai explained, schools are crucial to the development of the Catholic faith.<\/p>\n Since Papua New Guinea gained independence in 1975, a new arrangement was established between the government and the Catholic Church, resulting in the creation of the Catholic Education Agency and the Catholic Health Services, in partnership with the Education Department and the Department of Health, respectively. The Missionaries do not own any facilities; rather, they work in collaboration with the dioceses and within the existing framework.<\/p>\n Father Warwakai explained that the work of the Catholic Church is especially important in hard-to-reach rural areas with no government services. \u201cWe do not work in the hinter highlands region of Papua New guinea; however, we have missions in most rural parts of the country. Currently two of our parishes in the mountain regions of Bereina and Kerema Dioceses are St. John Vianney Parish, Tapini and Sacred Heart Bema, respectively. They have schools, both primary and high school and Health Care Facilities. They come under the Catholic Education Secretariat and Catholic Health Services of both dioceses but are administered by our priests and brothers. Due to the deteriorating condition of the road networks, the only means of transport to get to both mountain parishes is plane\u201d. He lamented that for the last 20 years \u201cthe health services and the education system have failed in many ways because there is very little government support in terms of the subsidy that is committed to the Church-run institutions, especially health and education. Sometimes those subsidies don\u2019t arrive on time, and for schools, they simply close\u201d. As for health facilities, Father Warwakai explained that sometimes they don\u2019t receive the government funds necessary to buy medicine, which results in \u201cpeople dying from curable diseases\u201d. Often, he added, these facilities have to scale down their operations, and \u201cthey only attend to certain cases that are very life-threatening, like mothers giving birth or someone who is going to die of malaria\u201d. Father Warwakai expressed his concern that this problem of limited resources and financial support is creeping into cities and other rural areas.<\/p>\n To counteract the shortage of government support, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus minister \u201cnot only to Catholics but to the general population\u201d. Father Warwakai affirmed that the health sector is one of the main areas in which the Church continues to be a \u201cwitness of the Gospel values\u201d amid \u201call the adversity and the challenges\u201d the country faces. He expressed gratitude for the support they receive from the Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and from the different religious congregations and missionaries present in the country. He said much of the limited help the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart receive comes from abroad, including from agencies in Australia and Europe. \u201cWe improvise with what we have, even though it isn\u2019t sufficient\u201d, he lamented.<\/p>\n Turning then to Pope Francis\u2019 upcoming trip to Asia and Oceania, which will include a stop in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, from 6 to 9 September \u2014 broken up by a short visit to the city of Vanimo on 8 September \u2014 Father Warwakai said it \u201cwill give some sense of belonging, hope and some optimism\u201d to the Missionaries who minister to the Papuan communities, as well as to other dioceses and institutions outside the capital city. He explained that the parishes in the Archdiocese of Port Moresby have been preparing with prayer and spiritual retreats. \u201cWe are proud, we are really happy\u201d, he stressed, noting that the last time a pontiff stepped foot in Papua New Guinea was in 1995, when Saint John Paul ii travelled there for the beatification of Peter To\u00b7Rot.<\/p>\n Now, with Pope Francis\u2019 Apostolic Journey, younger generations will have the opportunity to experience the Holy Father\u2019s closeness first-hand. \u201cHe kind of gives us the energy, the confidence that we have not been forgotten\u201d, said Father Warwakai, adding, \u201cWe\u2019re happy, and there is a certain sense of communion among everyone, and we are praying that the Pope\u2019s coming will bring a sense of hope\u201d and \u201csome form of change for our leaders\u201d. The Holy Father\u2019s presence, he affirmed, \u201cgives some sense of realistic outlook and promising hope moving forward into the future\u201d, including in the education and health sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Papua New Guinea provide education and health services to remote communities. A few weeks before Pope Francis’ Apostolic Journey to Asia and Oceania, L’Osservatore Romano spoke with Father Sylvester Warwakai, provincial superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Papua New Guinea. “The Church continues to witness to the values of the Gospel in the midst of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":3357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-us"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3590,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions\/3590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ametur-msc.org\/website\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}