PAPUA NEW GUINEA: POPE HOLDS MASS FOR NEWLY CANONISED SAINT

(17 Jan 1995) English/Nat
Undeterred by security worries on this South Pacific island, Pope John Paul II held an outdoor Mass in Port Moresby Tuesday.
The purpose of the mass was to beatify Papua New Guinea's first saint, Peter ToRot, a catholic executed by the Japanese in 1945.
The highlight of John Paul II's visit here was the Mass at Port Moresby's Sir John Guise Stadium.
Police were trying to down play rumours of a threat to the pontiff. Even so, they were concerned about the whereabouts of two Iranian carpet salesmen who disappeared just before he arrived.
Security was tight and a Filipino man with a gun was arrested while trying to enter the stadium. Police would not speculate on his intentions.
Beatification, the last step to sainthood, is part of John Paul's program to give local examples to Catholic communities, especially where they are in the minority.
SOUNDBITE:
The beatification of Peter ToRot opens a new period in Christian maturity. In the history of the local church in many countries, the first native born martyr marks a new beginning.
SUPER CAPTION: Pope John Paul II.
About one-third of the 3.9 million people in Papua New Guinea are Roman Catholic.
ToRot's bones were carried in a tiny casket by a procession of bare-chested men and women wearing necklaces of shark and dog teeth.
The casket was placed in a small thatched hut of banana palm leaves beside the altar.
But some of ToRot's countrymen protested the exhumation, claiming it went against local tradition.
And tribal Tenabuket or rainmakers arrived from ToRot's island of Rabaul to disrupt the service with rain.
For the first time in seven months there was a downpour and only 8,000 people, one- third the stadium's capacity, attended the ceremony in the drenching rain.
Papua New Guinea is the second stop on the 11-day papal tour.
There have been concerns over the 74-year-old pope's health.
John Paul walks with difficulty since hip replacement surgery in April, and often uses a cane.
At the mass he appeared frail as he battled with the heat and humidity.
He leaves Wednesday for Australia before finishing his tour in the predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka.

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