Peter To Rot

Blessed Peter To Rot
catechist
Born	1912 New Pomerania, German New Guinea (today New Britain, Papua New Guinea)
Died	1945 Rakunai, New Britain, Territory of New Guinea
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	17 January 1995, Port Moresby by Pope John Paul II
Feast	7 July

Peter To Rot (/toʊroʊt/ (1912?-1945) was a native of what is now Papua New Guinea, who was beatified as a martyr by the Catholic Church in 1995.

Childhood and youth

Peter To Rot was born in 1912^[1] on the island of New Pomerania, then part of German New Guinea. Two years later, on the outbreak of World War I, Australia took possession of German New Guinea, which in 1919 became the Territory of New Guinea, a League of Nations mandate territory under Australian administration. New Pomerania is now called New Britain and is part of Papua New Guinea.

Peter was the third of six children of Angelo Tu Puia and Maria Ia Tumul of Rakunai, who had become Catholic Christians in 1898. Although education was not obligatory, his father sent him to the local mission school when he was seven. At 18 years of age, he began a three-year course of studies at Saint Paul's College of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Taliligap, after which he was commissioned as a catechist for the parish of Rakunai in 1933.

In 1936, he married Paula Ia Varpit, with whom he had three children.

Martyrdom

When Japanese forces occupied the Territory of New Guinea in January 1942, they interned the foreign missionaries. The parish priest left To Rot in charge of his parish. He became its active leader. Towards the end of 1943, the Japanese authorities restricted religious services and a few months later forbade them entirely. To Rot continued to hold them secretly but was denounced by a native policeman who wanted to take a polygamous second wife, something that the Japanese authorities had legalised but that was opposed by To Rot as contrary to Catholic teaching. To Rot was sentenced to two months' imprisonment and before the time set for his release killed by beating and a lethal injection in June or July 1945.^[2]

Pope John Paul II declared: "When the authorities legalised and encouraged polygamy, Blessed Peter knew it to be against Christian principles and firmly denounced this practice. Because the Spirit of God dwelt in him, he fearlessly proclaimed the truth about the sanctity of marriage. He refused to take the 'easy way' (cf. Matthew 7:13) of moral compromise. 'I have to fulfil my duty as a Church witness to Jesus Christ', he explained. Fear of suffering and death did not deter him. During his final imprisonment Peter To Rot was serene, even joyful. He told people that he was ready to die for the faith and for his people."^[3]

Beatification

The process directed towards official recognition by the Catholic Church of his martyrdom for the faith obtained in 1993 a declaration by the Holy See that Peter To Rot gave his life as a witness for the faith. Pope John Paul II performed the ceremony of his beatification in Port Moresby on 17 January 1995.

He is included, with a feastday on 7 July, in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and in Australia and in that of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

In 2012 Pope Benedict XVI, who that year encouraged all married couples to look to To Rot's example of courage and to help others see the family as a gift,^[4] sent a special mission, headed by Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kium, to participate in the celebrations in Rabaul to mark the centenary of To Rot's birth.^[5]^[6]

On 5 March of that year, Papua New Guinea issued a series of postage stamps in honour of the centenary. ^[7]

References

External links

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