Crowned in Every Village: Our Lady of Fatima’s Walkabouts in Papua New Guinea
In October 2019, a crowd packed the airport at Kavieng, on the island of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea. When the plane they were waiting for landed, a statue was carried off it onto the tarmac, and the first to receive her was the Governor of New Ireland, Sir Julius Chan.
The lay people of the Diocese of Kavieng had asked for her three years before, and they had spent about a year preparing for her visit. Their bishop welcomed her and the team who came with her, and she was carried in a candle-lit procession from the airport into the town and on to the cathedral, where the people gave thanks and venerated her.
For about three weeks she travelled through the diocese by road and by sea, to parishes at Namatanai and Lavongai and on the islands of Lihir and Tanga.
She was the Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima, on one of the visits the people of Papua New Guinea call walkabouts. Australia Needs Fatima first brought her there in 2010, and on the 17th of October 2026 she set out on another.
What happens on a walkabout?
Each day of a walkabout begins before first light, with Mass in the village where the team spent the night. From there Our Lady goes from parish to parish and from village to village until the team reaches the evening’s destination, often after midnight.
In every place she is received, Our Lady is crowned as a Queen, and the crowning is often an elaborate ceremony. Then there is a Mass, and Paul Folley, the Custodian who travels with the statue, explains the message she gave at Fatima.
While the team sleeps, the people sing and praise her through the night until she leaves the next day. When the team moves on, people come out to the roadsides and the riverbanks to greet her as she passes.
Many villages are hard to reach, because the roads are rough or there are none at all. The team travels by four-wheel drive, by canoe and by boat, sometimes on foot and even by helicopter. On some days they travel for up to twenty hours, so that no village or church is left out, however remote.
Friends of the apostolate in Papua New Guinea ask the dioceses to host a walkabout, and each diocese that invites Our Lady plans and runs its own. The local communities raise money and help with transport, food and lodging, and the large gatherings in the villages usually pay for themselves. Australia Needs Fatima pays to bring the statue to Papua New Guinea, and for the fuel, hired vehicles, food and generators that a walkabout needs.
The heavenly Pilgrim
Pilgrim Virgin statues of Our Lady of Fatima have travelled the world since 1947, when the first of them set out from the shrine. On the 13th of October 1951, Pope Pius XII sent a radio message to Fatima for the close of the Marian celebrations there.
He spoke of the Queen of the Angels going out in her wonder-working images from the most famous shrines of Christendom, and in particular from Fatima, where, he said, Heaven had granted him to crown her Queen of the World. Then he described what was happening wherever she went:
“And as she passes, in America as in Europe, in Africa and in India, in Indonesia and in Australia, the blessings of Heaven rain down and the wonders of grace multiply, in such a way that we can scarcely believe what our eyes see.”
A little further on, he added:
“Under the motherly gaze of the heavenly Pilgrim there are no antagonisms of nationality or race to divide, no difference of frontiers to separate, no clash of interests to set people at odds; for a while, all feel happy to see that they are brothers.”
In Papua New Guinea, Australia Needs Fatima has written of the same graces: consolation, conversion, healing and the reconciliation of communities.
It began on Manus
The first walkabout was on Manus, in the north of the country. In October 2010, at the invitation of the Manus Island Fatima Family Apostolate, led by Otto and Lucy Rheeney, Our Lady visited dozens of parishes, as well as schools, hospitals, a prison and a naval base.
The people turned out in huge numbers. In June 2011 the apostolate invited her back, this time to Patu, one of the outlying islands of Manus, which she had not yet visited. Otto died that year, and Lucy took over the apostolate.
Word of the visit spread quickly, and requests for Our Lady came to the Sydney office from all over Papua New Guinea. Each walkabout needed the approval of the local bishop.
Where else has she been?
In Port Moresby, the capital, Nora Nelson and her Legion of Mary group asked for Our Lady and arranged her visits to parishes, schools, seminaries, military barracks and a prison. Thousands of people prayed before her, and thousands of petitions were written to “Mama Fatima”.
Gerry Tokilivila led the annual Parliamentary Rosary Crusade, held in the grounds of the National Parliament with the backing of the Archdiocese of Port Moresby and the cooperation of the Speaker at the time, Jeffrey Nape. When Our Lady was in the capital, she led its Rosary procession. Gerry had warned that Papua New Guinea was “coming under great pressure to liberalise its laws” on abortion, pornography and marriage.
Gerry is a Trobriand Islander, and he asked for a walkabout in his own islands. For two weeks Our Lady went from village to village on Kiriwina, the largest of them. Conversions were common in her presence, and whole communities of Protestants came to honour her too.
In the Highlands, Richard Koki and his wife Anne organised a walkabout through the whole area around Wabag, a cool, rainy town in Enga Province. Tens of thousands of people turned out to honour Our Lady.
Bougainville after the war
In 2016 Our Lady went to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which was still recovering from a long war. Schools, churches, clinics and homes had been destroyed, and tens of thousands of people had been driven from their homes.
Before she came, the people repaired the roads, decorated their villages and prepared ceremonies to welcome her, and there was much prayer and fasting. When she arrived, in the words of Australia Needs Fatima’s report from Buka, “the whole population mobilised to receive and honour their Queen.” One father carried his invalid daughter to see her.
People returned to church, and many went to Confession after years away. Couples who had been living together were married, clans were reconciled, and old feuds were set aside. Bishop Bernard Unibali began planning a permanent Fatima shrine, as a thanksgiving and a memorial of the visit.
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“That the mother of my Lord should come to me”
After the angel’s message at Nazareth, Saint Luke tells us that “Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39). When she arrived, Elizabeth asked: “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
On her walkabouts Our Lady still goes into the hill country, and out to the islands, to the people who wait for her. When she stayed at Hagita High School in Alotau, the capital of Milne Bay Province, the students spent three days and three nights in prayer before her, and they fasted the whole time.
Every village that crowns her and sings to her through the night asks Elizabeth’s question again.
The bishop who welcomed her at Kavieng
In 2018, Australia Needs Fatima placed the walkabouts under the care and protection of Peter To Rot, the catechist from Rakunai, on New Britain, who was killed in 1945 for defending Christian marriage. He was Blessed Peter To Rot then, and on the 19th of October 2025 Pope Leo XIV declared him a saint, the first from Papua New Guinea.
The bishop who welcomed Our Lady to Kavieng in October 2019 was Rochus Josef Tatamai, and he is a relative of Peter To Rot. “As his relative, I feel both proud and humbled,” he said before the canonisation. Since June 2020 he has been Archbishop of Rabaul, on New Britain, the island where Peter To Rot was born and where he died.
This year’s mission, which ends on the 2nd of November, is under Saint Peter To Rot’s patronage too, and Paul Folley expected about 50,000 people to see Our Lady during its two weeks. You can read the saint’s story in Saint Peter To Rot: The Catechist They Could Not Silence.
Back in the Highlands
After a great welcome in the city of Mount Hagen, Our Lady was taken to Wabag, the capital of Enga Province, in a procession of a hundred vehicles with a police escort. It was not her first visit: years before, tens of thousands had turned out to honour her there.
Paul Folley wrote to us from Enga on the fourth day. “Every day we visit three or four parishes and sub-parishes,” he wrote, “and everywhere the people turn out to greet Our Lady of Fatima with great enthusiasm.” At every stop he explains the message of Fatima, and he has seen people in tears as they hear it.
Enga has been torn for years by fighting between tribes. On the way, the team passed places where villages once stood and where there are now only ruins and ashes. Homes, schools, churches and health centres have been destroyed, and Paul writes that tens of thousands of people have fled the violence.
“People are crying out to Our Lady to bring an end to the bloodshed and destruction,” he wrote. Even on the first day, he said, “a sort of peace seems to have settled over the land,” and most of the fighting has stopped. People are saying it is a miracle, Paul wrote, because neither the politicians nor the army had been able to stop it.
“Our Lady is doing the work she came to do,” he wrote. The team will travel through Enga for another week, and Paul added: “The support Australia Needs Fatima has given to the Fatima apostolate here has made all this possible. The gratitude of the people of Enga is expressed everywhere we go.”
What you can do
From Australia, you can still go with her in prayer. Here are some ways to begin.
Pray the Rosary for peace in Enga, and for the people who come out to meet Our Lady and the team who travel with her.
Send Our Lady your intention on our page for her mission in Papua New Guinea.
Ask Saint Peter To Rot to pray for marriages and families in Papua New Guinea, and in your own family.
Keep a candle or flowers before a picture or statue of Our Lady in your home, and honour her there as Queen with the prayer below.
Hail, Holy Queen
Pray it for the people who crown her in Papua New Guinea:
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
V. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Queen of Peace, pray for us.
Saint Peter To Rot, pray for us.
References
[1] Lady of Fatima brings joy - The National. For Our Lady’s visit to the Diocese of Kavieng in October 2019.
[2] Our Lady in PNG - Australia Needs Fatima, 2018 brochure (not online). For a day on walkabout, how the walkabouts are organised and paid for, Paul Folley, the patronage of Peter To Rot and the graces reported.
[3] A Statue Carved with Prayer and Blessed with Mary’s Presence - World Apostolate of Fatima, USA. For the first Pilgrim Virgin statue setting out from Fatima in 1947.
[4] Radio message of Pius XII at the close of the Marian celebrations at Fatima, 13 October 1951 - The Holy See. For Pius XII’s words, translated from the Portuguese.
[5] Fatima apostolate flourishing across PNG - Australia Needs Fatima. For the walkabouts on Manus, Patu, Kiriwina and around Wabag, the visits in Port Moresby and the Parliamentary Rosary Crusade.
[6] Bougainville Rises from the Ashes - Australia Needs Fatima. For the visit to Bougainville in 2016 and what followed.
[7] Luke 1:39 - Bible Hub. For the verse in the Douay-Rheims translation.
[8] Luke 1:43 - Bible Hub. For the verse in the Douay-Rheims translation.
[9] Letter to supporters - Australia Needs Fatima, 2018 (not online). For Hagita High School.
[10] Saint Peter To Rot: The Catechist They Could Not Silence - Australia Needs Fatima. For his life, death and canonisation.
[11] Peter To Rot’s witness of martyrdom and morality - Vatican News. For Archbishop Tatamai’s relationship to Peter To Rot and his words.
[12] Pope appoints new Archbishop for Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Vatican News. For his appointment to Rabaul in June 2020.
[13] Archdiocese of Rabaul - Catholic-Hierarchy. For his being Archbishop of Rabaul today.
[14] Report from Paul Folley, Custodian - Australia Needs Fatima, October 2026 (not online). For this year’s mission in Mount Hagen and Enga.
[15] The Holy Rosary - America Needs Fatima. For the text of the Hail, Holy Queen.
Last updated: 21 October 2026 05:35