Port Moresby: Caritas Papua New Guinea was blessed to host the 2022 Caritas Oceania regional forum in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea from 3rd - 7th October 2022.
The forum comes after 3 years of absence from physical meetings due to Covid-19 and travel restrictions since the pandemic hit the region in 2019. Since then, most of the physical meetings and working collaborations by the Caritas confederation were replaced by zoom meetings, phone calls, and email.
This year’s annual Caritas Oceania forum was attended by member countries including Chief Executive Officers and program leads from Caritas Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Secour Catholique de Nouvelle-Noumea, and Caritas Papua New Guinea.
President of Caritas Oceania Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi in his remarks, setting the scene for the week-long region Caritas forum said, Caritas as the charity arm of the church will continue to journey together and strengthening its solidarity by listening to the cry of the poor, the displaced and struggling because of climate change in the islands in the Pacific.
Cardinal Mafi reiterated that the forum was an opportunity for the Caritas family in Oceania to reflect on the journey of charity, listen to themselves and each other, and perhaps how the confederation can journey together into the years ahead.
Caritas Archdiocese of Fiji was supposed to be the host for the 2022 annual forum, however, the Caritas Oceania confederation secretariate amicably agreed and requested Caritas PNG to host the 2022 forum.
“When we heard that our president of Caritas Internationalis Cardinal Tagle was visiting PNG at the request of CBCPNGSI, we thought this would be an opportunity for the Caritas family to meet his eminence here in Papua New Guinea as well”.
The highlight of the week-long forum in PNG was face-to-face meetings and interaction with Caritas Internationalis president his eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on October 6th and the launching of the Caritas Oceania Twin Cloud on the horizon report: Adverting a combined climate debt crisis in the Pacific through locally delivered climate finance.
In a show of solidarity, the Caritas Oceania forum was blessed to have his eminence Cardinal Soane Paini Mafi from Samoa Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of the Archdiocese of Suva, Fr. Pesamino Victor and Fr. Fotutata Soane as participants during the weeklong forum in Port Moresby.
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