Saint Peter To Rot: The Catechist They Could Not Silence

Imagine kneeling in a garden on your own island to plant vegetables for the soldiers who occupy it. You are a husband and a father. The soldiers have taken the priests away, and since then your village has turned to you for its baptisms and its weddings and for the prayers on Sunday.

The soldiers have forbidden you to do any of it, and you have gone on doing all of it. When the police come to arrest you, they find you in the garden, where you are growing food for the men who are about to imprison you.

In the last year of the Second World War, this was the life of a catechist from the village of Rakunai, on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. His name was Peter To Rot, and on the 19th of October 2025 Pope Leo XIV declared him a saint, the first from his country. Our Lady of Fatima’s walkabouts in Papua New Guinea are placed under his care and protection.

A chief’s son at Rakunai

Peter To Rot was born at Rakunai in 1912. His father, Angelo Tu Puia, was the village chief, and his mother was Maria Ia Tumul. Both had become Catholics in 1898, and his father, one of the first in Rakunai to be baptised, gave the land for the church, the school and the mission house.

The missionaries who served Rakunai were the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. As a young man Peter showed an interest in the priesthood, and in 1930 he went to St Paul’s College at Taliligap, where the same missionaries trained lay catechists. In 1933 he came home as the catechist of his own parish.

A catechist taught the Faith, led the people in prayer and prepared them for the sacraments. When John Paul II came to Port Moresby to beatify Peter, he reminded the catechists in the crowd that his encyclical Redemptoris Missio calls them “direct witnesses and irreplaceable evangelizers”.

He also described the man Peter became: “a devoted husband, a loving father and a dedicated catechist known for his kindness, gentleness and compassion.” To do the work well, the Pope said, Peter studied hard and asked the advice of the wise and holy leaders of his people. Most of all, he prayed.

A husband who prayed with his wife

On the 11th of November 1936, Peter married Paula Ia Varpit. According to John Paul II, he “treated his wife Paula with deep respect and prayed with her morning and evening”, and “for his children he had the utmost affection and spent as much time with them as he could.”

Hold on to that picture of a husband and wife at prayer, morning and evening, in a village in Papua New Guinea. Peter To Rot would give his life for what it shows: one husband and one wife, faithful to each other before God.

When the priests were taken away

In 1942 the Japanese army occupied New Britain. The European missionaries were interned, and Peter, a layman of about thirty, was left responsible for the mission at Rakunai. He led the prayers, baptised and taught adults and children, officiated at marriages, visited the sick, and taught the schoolchildren and the other catechists. He also carried food to the interned missionaries and to the prisoners of war.

At first the occupiers tolerated the Church, but towards the end of 1943 their tolerance turned to hostility. Peter was questioned and ordered to limit his activities for the sake of “wartime security”, and in March 1944 he was forbidden any religious activity at all.

He carried on. He built a wooden chapel in the bush, and on his own land at Taogo he made an underground shelter where people could still come to pray and receive the sacraments. John Paul II recalled his explanation: “I have to fulfil my duty as a Church witness to Jesus Christ.”

Pope Leo XIV spoke to pilgrims the day after the canonisation. He said that although Peter was “an ordinary catechist, he showed extraordinary courage by risking his life to carry out his apostolate in secret”, and he quoted the words Peter spoke in the face of that hostility:

“This is a very bad time for us and we are all afraid. But God our Father is with us and looking after us. We must pray and ask him to stay with us always.”

The question of marriage

To win over the village chiefs, the occupying authorities legalised polygamy and encouraged men to take more than one wife. Peter spoke against it openly. In the words of John Paul II, “he fearlessly proclaimed the truth about the sanctity of marriage.”

The Pope said that Peter “had the highest esteem for marriage”, and that he “defended the Church’s teaching on the unity of marriage and the need for mutual fidelity.”

Pope Leo XIV said that he “firmly defended the sanctity of marriage and even confronted some powerful people.” One of those people was a local policeman who served the Japanese. The policeman wanted to take a Catholic woman as his second wife, and Peter stood in his way. The policeman then reported him to the occupiers for officiating at the weddings of two Catholic couples.

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Arrested in his garden

The police came for Peter while he was planting vegetables for the Japanese soldiers. He was questioned at the police headquarters at Vunaiara and sentenced to two months’ detention in the camp there, where the Japanese police held their prisoners in caves.

He did not hide what he expected. He told those around him that he was ready to die for the Faith and for his people. Two of his brothers were held in the camp with him, and according to Archbishop Rochus Tatamai, a relative of the saint, Peter told his fellow prisoners:

“You will be released. I will remain here, for this will cost my life.”

The last day

On the last day of his life, Peter asked Paula to bring him his catechist’s crucifix.

He told his mother that the police had said a Japanese doctor would come that evening to give him medicine. He was not sick.

That night an army doctor gave him a lethal injection, and two officers of the Japanese military police killed him. He was thirty-three years old. John Paul II said of him: “Condemned without trial, he suffered his martyrdom calmly.”

The next morning a policeman came to Rakunai and told the village: “Your catechist is dead.” It was July 1945, and the war had only weeks left to run. The people of Rakunai buried Peter in the mission cemetery.

On the 2nd of April 1993, in the presence of John Paul II, a decree recognised that he had been killed in hatred of the Faith.

“Peter To Rot shows us the way”

John Paul II beatified Peter To Rot on the 17th of January 1995, at the Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby. Four months earlier, the volcanoes at Rabaul, near Rakunai, had erupted and buried much of the town in ash, and the Pope said the sufferings caused by the eruption had drawn the Christian community of New Britain closer to its martyr. “Blessed Peter understood the value of suffering,” he told them.

In the same homily he turned to the people in Tok Pisin: “Mi laik bai yupela i tingim Peter To Rot oltaim.” I want you to remember Peter To Rot always.

Then he gave the reason, in a sentence that plays on the martyr’s name, because in Tok Pisin “rot” means road, or way: “Bikos Peter To Rot I soim rot long yumi.” Because Peter To Rot shows us the way.

He also described the road Peter took: “by dying daily to himself, he walked with his Lord on the road which leads to Calvary.”

Australians have reason to remember him too. Thirteen years after his beatification, he was chosen as one of the patrons of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.

A saint for Papua New Guinea

On the 19th of October 2025, in St Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV canonised him together with six others, among them Bartolo Longo, the apostle of the Rosary of Pompeii. The official portrait, painted by Raúl Berzosa for the canonisation, shows Peter holding a Bible and wedding rings, with his catechist’s cross around his neck. Fr Tomas Ravaioli, who commissioned it, recalls Pope Francis saying of him: “this is the saint the Church needs in these times.”

“We can see the deep faith of the people of Papua New Guinea reflected in Saint Peter To Rot,” Pope Leo XIV told the pilgrims the next day.

In Rakunai his remains rest in a wooden box in the shrine that bears his name. According to Sister Daisy Lisania, MSC, the children of the nearby school come in to pray during their breaks.

In Brisbane, about two hundred Catholics from Papua New Guinea gathered at Marian Valley for a Mass of thanksgiving. “It was a very special long-awaited moment,” said Ian Taatu, of the PNG Brisbane and Gold Coast Catholic Community.

Sister Lucia and the final battle

When Cardinal Carlo Caffarra began the work John Paul II had given him on marriage and the family, he wrote to Sister Lucia of Fatima to ask for her prayers. He did not expect a reply, but a letter came back.

In 2008, after offering Mass at the tomb of Padre Pio, the Cardinal described what she had written. Sister Lucia told him that “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” She wrote, “Don’t be afraid,” and she added: “Our Lady has already crushed its head.”

Peter To Rot never read those words. Decades before they were written, on an occupied island far from Fatima, a catechist had already given his life in that battle, for the marriages of his people and for the Faith that teaches what marriage is.

Today a Pilgrim Virgin statue of Our Lady of Fatima travels from parish to parish in his country. Where she stays the night, the people sing and praise her until she leaves the next day.

What you can do

Pope Leo XIV asked that Peter’s example “encourage us to defend the truths of the faith, even at the cost of personal sacrifice, and to rely always on God in our trials.” Here are some ways to begin.

Pray for the Fatima mission in Papua New Guinea, which runs from the 17th of October to the 2nd of November 2026 under his patronage.

If you are married, pray with your husband or wife tonight, as Peter prayed with Paula morning and evening.

Pray the Rosary for a marriage you know that is in difficulty, and ask Saint Peter To Rot to intercede for it.

Pray for the catechists of Papua New Guinea, who carry on his work today.

Keep his feast on the 7th of July.

A prayer for those who do not believe

The prayer the Angel of Peace taught the three children at Fatima in 1916:

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee. Amen.

Saint Peter To Rot, pray for us.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

References

[1] To Rot, Peter (1912–1945) - Australian Dictionary of Biography. For his family and training, his work during the occupation, the ban on religious practice, the policeman’s report, his detention and death, and the decree on his martyrdom.

[2] Homily at the beatification of Peter To Rot, Port Moresby, 17 January 1995 - The Holy See. For John Paul II’s words about him and the passage in Tok Pisin.

[3] Address of Pope Leo XIV to pilgrims who came for the canonisations, 20 October 2025 - The Holy See. For Pope Leo XIV’s words and the words of Saint Peter To Rot he quoted.

[4] Blessed Peter To Rot - Abbey of Saint-Joseph de Clairval. For his arrest in the garden, the chapel in the bush, his questioning at Vunaiara, the doctor’s visit, the news brought to the village and his patronage of World Youth Day 2008.

[5] Peter To Rot’s witness of martyrdom and morality - Vatican News. For his brothers in the camp, his words to his fellow prisoners and the caves at Vunaiara.

[6] A saint to be for a nation: Peter To Rot’s witness shapes Papua New Guinea - Vatican News. For his father’s gift of land, the shrine at Rakunai, the canonisation portrait and the words of Pope Francis recalled by Fr Tomas Ravaioli.

[7] Pope: Be inspired to imitate the new saints - Vatican News. For the date and place of the canonisation and the saints canonised with him.

[8] Peter To Rot sainthood celebrated in Brisbane with thanksgiving Mass in Marian Valley - The Catholic Leader. For the thanksgiving Mass in Brisbane.

[9] The Family is the Battlefield in a Great Spiritual War - National Catholic Register. For Cardinal Caffarra’s account of Sister Lucia’s letter.

[10] Catholic Prayer: Fatima Pardon Prayer - Catholic Culture. For the text of the prayer.

[11] Bl. Peter To Rot - U.S. Catholic. For his feast day.

[12] Booklet for the Mass of canonisation, 19 October 2025 - The Holy See. For his birth and training, the ban on religious activity in March 1944, his arrest, and his death in July 1945.

Last updated: 15 October 2026 08:45