By Michelle Amba
A 40-year-old Catholic Church in Central Province outside of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, has been demolished by developers.
Bisogo Catholic church has has a congregation of about a thousand people in the Laloki area.
A new title holder used force to put down the church building.
The Port Moresby Catholic Archbishop, John Ribat, was at the site this morning condemning the actions of those responsible.
“This shows that people do not care about what Christianity and what the church is bringing to the communities,” he said. “It shows that people put material things ahead of Christian beliefs and teachings,” said Bishop Ribat.
Bishop Ribat said there was an understanding between the landowners and the church and the church has been there through this understanding.
After several attempts to get clarification from the lands department, the church found out that the boundaries of where the church was situated and the piece of land that was sold off was not quite clear.
It seems portion 230 was sold to the said title holder and the church sits on portion 292.The church believes there has been some misunderstanding resulting in the demolition of the church.
The Bishop said, “It is not clear to us whether the land is a customary land or state land however more investigations must be conducted to clarify these doubts”.
Bishop Ribat says the damage has been done and the Church will be working in close consultation with the Lands department to see how this can be resolved.
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