Bl. Peter To Rot

Born: March 5, 1912

Died: July 7, 1945

Feast day: July 7

Patron of: married couples, catechists, Rakunai, World Youth Day 2008

Peter To Rot was from the Austronesian-speaking Tolai people of Papua New Guinea. To Rot was the third son of Angelo Tu Puia, one of the tribal chiefs and the first adult to be baptized Catholic among his people. Tu Puia organized the communal acceptance of Catholicism and mapped out its direction. When one of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart suggested that his son could be a priest, Tu Puia declined, stating their “generation was not yet ready,” but To Rot could be trained as a catechist instead.

To Rot was then sent to St. Paul’s College of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Taliligap. He graduated from the seminary-like community in three years and returned to Rakunai, where he taught in the school and catechized the community. He maintained a rigorous prayer life with a love of scripture that may have stemmed from the Methodists, who first evangelized the area.

But then war came when the Japanese Army invaded in 1942. The soldiers rounded up and imprisoned the priests and religious. When they advanced on the mission compound a year later, To Rot met them alone, somehow escaping with his life despite the military assault on the church.

With the clergy and religious removed, To Rot suddenly became the leader of the church. He taught in the open despite Japanese hostility. He baptized, ministered to the sick and dying, and witnessed marriages. He regularly made the long trek to the prison camp with gifts of food and brought back the Holy Eucharist to Rakunai, where he kept it in a shrine in the hillside tunnels built for shelter against bombing raids.

Persecution against the Catholics in Rakunai intensified. The Japanese seemed to acknowledge the Catholics’ spiritual power, blaming them for military setbacks. The invaders promoted a return to polygamy, not only to undermine village authority and encourage obedience to Japanese rule, but also to make it easier to recruit prostitutes for the army. To Rot would not back down.

The Japanese reached their limit, imprisoning To Rot on Christmas Day in 1944 and then executing him by lethal injection in July 1945. When asked why they killed To Rot in a trial after the war, they responded, “Too much Christo.”

—Damian Costello