Solomon Islands: What can the Church do?

Sydney
24 August 2003

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Solomon Islands: What can the Church do?

Solomon Islands: What can the Church do?

By Bishop Bernard O’Grady

In dealing with the current situation in the Solomon Islands, I think we have to ask ourselves the question: What went wrong?’ What should we as a Church be doing to restore peace, to make the Solomons again a Christian country?

The Solomons has been in the news a little more than usual these past four years, since full scale fighting erupted between tribal groups from the islands of Malaita and Guadalcanal. That state of hostility has come about due to a long festering dispute over land.

Sadly not a great deal is known in Australia about the present day Solomons since the days of fighting on Guadalcanal during World War II. What is known through the news media is generally only the bad news of the fighting and killings that have almost destroyed the once aptly named ‘Happy Isles’.

The Solomons have a longish history of evangelisation, of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. The first Catholic Marist missionaries came to the Solomons almost 160 years ago.

That first effort was short lived, resulting in the deaths of the Bishop, Bishop Epalle, and his fellow missionaries. Eventually other Marists returned 50 years later with more success.

There are now three Catholic dioceses: Honiara, Auki and Gizo. With the advent of other Christian Churches, the country calls itself a Christian nation.

In the midst of all the seeming bleakness brought about by the ethnic tension and fighting, most Solomon Islanders still attend “lotu”, as religious practice is called.

They recognise God as very much an ongoing part of their lives. The young people in particular are very active in Church affairs. This is a young nation.

I think the Church is playing a vital role to assist the peace process, through an organisation that includes all the mainstream Churches, the Solomon Islands Christian Association.

Within the association is a special peace council. It is deeply involved in working with the tribal elders and former fighters to make peace along traditional cultural lines of exchange of gifts and feast making.

Fortunately, these traditional ways are still respected and are usually quite effective. Peacemaking ceremonies are very moving events, helping show others who still retain their guns and have lost trust in each other that there is a better way of life than murder and distrust.

Often as a result they hand over their weapons. Then the whole village can declare itself ‘gun free’.

We who are privileged to work as missionaries in the Solomon Islands are grateful for the support we receive from Catholic Mission Australia. It enables the work of assisting a young and vigorous Church to find its feet again and grow ever stronger to continue.

I repeat the Pope’s words: “Unless the Church is missionary, it is dead.”

A recent letter in The Australian asked why religious orders in the Catholic Church are still allowed to proselytise?

The writer was upset because members of the Melanesian Brothers in the Solomon Islands were being mentioned as having been taken hostage by Harold Keke, one of the rebel leaders in the three-year-long fighting that has wrecked the Solomons.

The writer was wrong. The Melanesian Brothers are a religious congregation of the Anglican Church of Melanesia. And he was wrong to think they were proselytising.

They have been, from the beginning of the so-called ethnic tension in the Solomons, acting on behalf of the Solomon Islands Christian Association to try to bring about peace.

By visiting the various factions, and especially Keke’s murderous group which has already killed a priest, Fr Augustine Geve and more than 50 others, including one brother, have worked fearlessly to get them to join the peace movement.

All the Christian Churches are involved in seeking peace. But when people have guns they no longer trust anymore and that lack of trust is, I think, the major consequence of the fighting. Disputes are now settled by guns with dire results.

Donations to the Solomon Islands are being used by the priests, who are all now mostly local Solomon Islanders, and other Church workers like catechists or our sisters to travel by outboard-powered canoes to visit the communities.

There are too many islands to count. This makes travel difficult and expensive with petrol over $2 a litre.

The development of women has been another focus of our work. Many of them do not have an opportunity for full schooling. Some are sent to what we call rural training centres to learn community and family hygiene and health.

There is a pastoral formation centre for the training of catechists and preparation of those who wish to enter other forms of ministry.

One huge expense this year is sending a Solomon Islander to Manila in the Philippines for further training. He has been involved in working at the centre but now needs to learn some new skills and, in turn, pass them on.

To sum up, our missionary endeavour at this stage of the Church’s growth would be to make it become self sufficient both financially and spiritually, a real local Church.

In effect, this means the faith of the people is being deepened. Part of that deepening process is the inevitable testing it is going through. When someone in a clan or family is insulted, injured or even murdered, custom dictates that revenge is sought by payback.

So often Catholic missionaries and other Christians are accused of interfering with the lives of the simple people.

But everyone has a right to hear the Good News. Isn’t that what Jesus ordered his apostles: “Go out to every nation and preach the good news”. It was not a choice or option. It was a command.

Preaching the good news or evangelising is not the same as proselytising which unfortunately is common enough among the fundamentalists of this world.

Bishop Bernard O’Grady is Bishop of Gizo, Solomon Islands