Pacific Island of Tonga Celebrates Its 1st Catholic Cardinal
- Feb 13, 2015
- 2 min read
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Churches dot the heavily Christian, tiny island of Tonga everywhere and choirs can be heard singing on any day of the week.
So many in the Pacific nation of 106,000 are overjoyed that the Catholic Church is making a Tongan a cardinal for the first time even though a majority of islanders are Protestant. The island's king, a Wesleyan Methodist, is hoping to attend the ceremony Saturday at the Vatican and later has a private meeting scheduled with the pope.
Bishop Soane Patita Paini Mafi is one of 20 cardinals being elevated by the pope and is an outlier not only in geography but also in age: At 53, he will be the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.
Just getting to the Vatican has proved a challenge for Mafi. He needed to first fly about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to Fiji and wait there several days to get his visa, because Tonga is too small to issue them.
"Well everybody here in Tonga is just so surprised," said the Rev. Lutoviko Finau, who is responsible for the Tongan Catholic church in Mafi's absence. "We are so happy about it. So grateful as well."
Mafi represents a church and region grappling with climate change, which is one of the major concerns of Pope Francis. In a recent interview with the Jesuit magazine America, Mafi spoke about the "permanent vulnerability" low-lying Pacific islands such as Tonga face from global warming.
Francis has said climate change is mostly man-made and is expected to lay out his call for greater stewardship of God's creation in an upcoming encyclical that has elated environmentalists and alarmed climate change skeptics, including those within the church.
Mafi, who was traveling and could not be reached for comment, on his resume lists paying attention to the needs of the disadvantaged and women as a priority.
He grew up in a religious family, and both his grandfather and father were church catechists. The Rev. Sepa Maka said there was no electricity in Tonga when Mafi was young. He said before turning to the seminary, Mafi was a free spirit "who did what he was doing according to the wind."
Mafi attended a year at St. Patrick's College in Wellington in part to improve his English. New Zealander Peter Gregan said Mafi boarded with his late mother, who had suffered a stroke, and helped her cook and clean.
He then entered the Pacific Regional Seminary in Fiji. The Rev. Michael O'Connor, the rector, said that like the other students, Mafi would help in the plantations, harvesting cassava, talo and bananas. He said Mafi was a keen sportsman, playing rugby, a sport which has now been banned from the seminary because of the number of injuries.
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