The leader of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has reacted to the election of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV was elected by his fellow cardinals in the Conclave on Thursday evening, Rome time.

Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.

He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.

PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.

Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.

“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.

Hopes for climate response
Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.

He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.

“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.

“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.

“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.

“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”

Picking up issues
New Zealand’s Cardinal John Dew, who was in the Conclave, said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out about issues around the world.

He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.

“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Mosese Raqio in Suva

Two out of three women in every church in Fiji experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime — and there are “uncomfortable truths” that need to be heard and talked about, says a Pacific church leader.

This was highlighted by Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan while delivering his sermon during the “Break the Silence” Sunday at Suva’s Butt Street Wesley Church.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”

These were the words of Samoa’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, speaking in his capacity as chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the UNFCCC COP28 in Dubai last year.

Outside, Pacific climate activists and allies, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors, were calling for a robust and comprehensive financial package that would see the full, fast, and fair transition away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy in the Global South.

This is our Pacific Way in action: state parties and civil society working together to remind the world as we approach a “finance COP” with the upcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11-22  that we cannot be conveniently pigeonholed.

We are people who represent not only communities but landscapes and seascapes that are both vulnerable, and resilient, and should not be forced by polluting countries and the much subsidised and profit-focused fossil fuel industries that lobby them to choose between mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.

Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) are the uncomfortable reminder for those who want smooth sailing of their agenda at COP29, that while we are able to hold the tension of our vulnerability and resilience in the Pacific, this may make for choppy seas.

I recently had the privilege of joining the SPREP facilitated pre-COP29 gathering for PSIDS and the Climate Change Ministerial meeting in Nadi, Fiji, to provide spiritual guidance and pastoral support.

This gathering took place in a spiritually significant moment, the final week of the Season of Creation, ending, profoundly, on the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment. The theme for this year’s Season of Creation was, “to hope and act with Creation (the environment).

Encouraged to act in hope
I looked across the room at climate ministers, lead negotiators from the region and the regional organisations that support them and encouraged them to begin the preparatory meeting and to also enter COP29 with hope, to act in hope, because to hope is an act of faith, of vision, of determination and trust that our current situation will not remain the status quo.

Pacific church leaders have rejected this status quo by saying that finance for adaptation and loss and damage, without a significant commitment to a fossil fuel phase-out that is full, fast and fair, is the biblical equivalent to 30 pieces of silver — the bribe Judas was given to betray Jesus.

In endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and leading the World Council of Churches to do the same, Pacific faith communities are joining their governments and civil societies to ensure the entire blue Pacific voice reverberates clearly into the spaces where the focus on finance is dominant.

As people with a deep connection to land and sea, whose identity does not separate itself from biodiversity, the understanding of the “groaning of Creation” (Romans 8:19-25) resonates with Pacific islanders.

We were reminded of the words of St. Saint Augustine that says: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

As we witness the cries and sufferings of Earth and all creatures, let righteous anger move us toward the courage to be hopeful and active for justice.

Hope is not merely optimism. It is not a utopian illusion. It is not waiting for a magical miracle.

Hope is trust that our action makes sense, even if the results of this action are not immediately seen. This is the type of hope that our Pasifika households carry to COP29.

Reverend James Bhagwan is general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. He holds a Bachelor of Divinity from the Pacific Theological College in Fiji and a Masters in Theology from the Methodist Theological University in Korea. He also serves as co-chair of the Fossil Fuel NonProliferation Treaty Campaign Global Steering Committee. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called on France to drop the “limbo” proposed law on electoral changes in Kanaky New Caledonia opposed by the indigenous pro-independence movement and restore the path to peace and self-determination.

General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan made the call at the UN Committee of 24 meeting in New York as the future of the draft law, which has already been passed decisively by the Senate and National Assembly but not ratified by the combined Council, looked doubtful as a result of French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election.

Incomplete legislation is reportedly deemed as suspended once a general election is called.

Reverend Bhagwan referred to his role as a petitioner at C24 in June 2022 when he spoke on behalf of Pacific faith and civil society organisations against the moive by the French givernment to “fast track” legislative changes that would dilute the vote of the indigenous Kanaks, already a minority 41 percent of the 270,000 New Caledonian population.

Criticising France for having turned a “deaf ear” to the “untiring and peaceful calls of the indigenous people for a new political process following the 1998 Nouméa Accord, Reverend Bhagwan said Paris had not upheld “one of the most fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter — the fundamental right of all peoples to be free, free from colonial rule”.

in his group statement on the “Question of New Caledonia” to the “Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples” at the UN, he said:

The chair, members of this august committee, petitioners and observers.

Greetings from the Pasifika Household of God. May the grace and peace of God be upon you all.

In June, 2022, I was here as a petitioner on behalf of faith and civil society organisations of our Pacific region, home to the French colonised territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and Mā’ohi Nui French Polynesia, to raise our concerns on the failure of the referendum process.

In Kanaky, under the Nouméa Accord, through the actions of the French government to fast track the third referendum, despite local, regional and global pleas.

In the two years since, France has taken further actions that contradict its responsibilities as an administrating power, to uphold one of the most fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter — the fundamental right of all peoples to be free, free from colonial rule.

France has turned a deaf ear to untiring and peaceful calls of the indigenous people of Kanaky-New Caledonia and other pro-independence supporters for a new political process, founded on justice, peaceful dialogue and consensus and has demonstrated a continued inability and unwillingness to remain a neutral and trustworthy party under the Nouméa Accord.

Today, on behalf of Pacific Churches and Civil Society we reiterate our collective concerns that we have made in a number of statements on the current situation in Kanaky.

Recalling these statements and on behalf of the Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, and the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisation Alliance, the Pacific Conference of Churches calls:

1. For the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the draft constitutional law seeking to unfreeze the local electorate roll. Noting that the Presidents of four other French overseas territories have called for the withdrawal of the voting changes;
2. On the French Government to reconsider, as an essential step to de-escalating tensions in the territory, any further deployment of armed forces to Kanaky;
3. On the French Presidency to cease any further attempts to enforce externally designed and controlled pathways to determine the political future of Kanaky, including a possible referendum in France to unfreeze the territory’s electorate roll;
4. On other parties to the Noumea Accord to heed the repeated and non-violent requests of the FLNKS and other pro-independence voices, over the last 2-3 years, to allow more conducive conditions for dialogue and negotiation for a better political agreement, and to give the process all the time necessary to do so;
5. For the Pacific Islands Forum to establish an Eminent Persons Group, comprising of French, Pacific Islands and international personalities, in collaboration with the C24, as a matter of urgency to mediate between the parties and ensure the best conditions to enable a just and peaceful dialogue process for the territory’s political future; and finally,
6. Beyond the political dialogue process, commitments to be made and kept for culturally appropriate community trauma healing for all communities in Kanaky and for community dialogue processes, particularly between Kanak and Caldoche for peacebuilding as well as nation building.

The very fact that Kanaky New Caledonia is an agenda item in this meeting and that of the 24th Committee is a reminder that their decolonisation is a matter of ‘WHEN’, not ‘if’ — and a ‘when’ that needs to be sooner rather than later.

May God’s blessings of justice, love and liberation be with all the people of Kanaky as they seek their own equality, liberty and fraternity.

Oleti Atrqatr (Thank you in the Kanak Drehu dialect).

Presented by
Reverend James Shri Bhagwan
General Secretary
Pacific Conference of Churches

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz