A martyr for marriage: the heroic Peter To Rot, PNG’s first saint

It’s not the eyes that draw you in when you first look at the official portrait of Papua New Guinea’s first saint, Peter To Rot. It’s his right hand. Palm up, slightly inclined, dusky and muscular, he is handing you two overlapping wedding bands.  

In his left hand he is holding Buk Baibel, the Holy Bible in Tok Pisin; from his neck hangs a catechist’s cross; on his blue shorts is stitched a large white cross. A halo circles his serene, half-smiling face.  

But it is those golden circles which captivate you. Because the ringbearer of Rakunai, the village on the island of New Britain where he lived, was a martyr for Christian marriage.  

That’s why Peter To Rot’s canonisation in Rome on Sunday, 19 October, is important, not just for Papua New Guinea, but for the world.  

A delegation from the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and Solomon Islands will travel to Rome for the canonisation.  

The delegation includes around 20 bishops including Fr Lawrence Arockiaraj, general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and Fr Tomas Ravaoli, IVE, the new saint’s vice-postulator.    

Additional pilgrims from PNG will also attend the program. 

“The canonisation of Bl Peter To Rot is not only a cause for national pride but, more importantly, a call to holiness for every Catholic in Papua New Guinea and the world,” said Fr Arockiaraj.

“Bl Peter To Rot’s life reminds us that sanctity is possible in every walk of life, in family, in work, and in witness to truth. His canonisation invites us to renew our faith and to live it courageously in our own communities.” 

Fr Ravaioli, Argentinian missionary, has the job of providing Vatican authorities with the necessary theological and historical documentation.  

He says that To Rot was killed because he bore witness to a permanent, monogamous, and holy union between man and woman.  

“In a world in which Christian marriage and the family are under such attack (think of divorce, abortion, single mothers, gender ideology, homosexual unions, etc.), Peter To Rot reminds us that God’s plan for the family consists of the union of one man and one woman until death,” he told the PNG newspaper The National.  

Peter To Rot was born in 1912 in New Britain, an island off the coast of New Guinea. He trained as a catechist for the parish of Rakunai, near Rabaul, and completed his studies in 1933. In 1936 he married Paula Ia Varpit; they had three children, although only one survived.  

In 1942 the troops of Imperial Japan expelled New Britain’s Australian defenders. As time went on, the occupiers became overtly anti-Christian. Priests were imprisoned; churches were destroyed.  

To Rot ministered to local Catholics from a bush church which he built himself; he baptised, presided at weddings, maintained records, and continued catechising.  

To detach the villagers from Christianity, the Japanese legalised the traditional practice of polygamy. To Rot denounced this in no uncertain terms, antagonising powerful locals who had taken second wives.  

One of these collaborators dobbed him in. The furious Japanese commander had him arrested late in 1944. He was beaten and imprisoned.  

On 7 July, 1945, To Rot had an inkling that the end was near. He dressed in his best clothes and put on his catechist cross. A Japanese doctor gave To Rot a lethal injection, although he botched the job, and soldiers had to smother him. He was given a chief’s burial by his village friends.  

This took place only two months before Japanese troops at Rabaul surrendered.  

News of his martyrdom spread and in 1952 the Archbishop of Rabaul opened his process of canonisation. In 1995 he was beatified by Pope St John Paul II during his visit to PNG. 

However, much to the consternation of Fr Ravaioli, afterwards the wheels fell off the cart in the Vatican.  

“The priests who led the cause in the 80s and 90s had been assigned to other work, and some had even died,” he said.  

“But since those who led the cause at that time lived in Rome, we in PNG thought that someone in Rome was still taking care of this matter. However, that was not the case.” 

In 2020 Fr Ravaioli took charge, and the cause got back on track. 

There was a hitch, however. For a person to be recognised as a saint, an authenticated miracle is ordinarily needed.  

The PNG bishops requested a dispensation from this onerous requirement. In a rural society like PNG, where hospitals are scarce and few people speak standard English, rigorous documentation of a miraculous healing is almost impossible.  

The Vatican agreed and on 19 March Pope Francis authorised the canonisation.  

Though Peter To Rot is best known for his ardent defence of Christian marriage, Fr Ravaioli pointed out that he was a model of many virtues. Among them was – like Carlo Acutis – devotion to the Eucharist. 

“He would walk for five or six hours hidden in the bush to reach the prison where the missionaries were held, and from them he received the consecrated hosts that he then distributed among the faithful in the villages,” he said.  

“In doing so, he risked his life, because they could kill him if they discovered him. But his love for Jesus was greater than his fear of losing his life.  

“In fact, when he suspected that they wanted to kill him, he asked his wife to hide the pyx with the consecrated hosts, because that was his greatest concern.” 

The setting of the portrait by Raúl Berzosa, a Spanish artist, is a village half-hidden in a tropical jungle.

Palm trees wave overhead under a blue sky with tufts of cloud. But Peter To Rot is sending a message to us in the developed world – we were made for happiness and for Christian marriage.