Faith, Joy, & Courage: Bl. Peter To Rot

Faith, Joy, & Courage: Bl. Peter To Rot

By Beckie Gautreau, Contributing Writer

If it is God’s will, I’ll be murdered for the faith. I am a child of the church and therefore for the church I will die.
– Peter to Rot

Canonization: October 19 
Feast Day: July 7

Peter To Rot grew up in a faithful Catholic family in Papua New Guinea. He lived out his life simply with great devotion to his parents, his siblings, his wife and children, and his community. 

His father was the chief of their village and his parents were the first to be baptized when Catholic missionaries began teaching. Peter, born fourteen years after his parents’ conversion, wholeheartedly embraced the faith from a young age.

He became a catechist in his local parish at a young age—younger than all the other catechists in the area. A friend from the village recounted Peter’s modesty, commenting that there was “not the slightest vanity in him, neither with regard to his background nor capability. He let the older catechists guide him in his work and accepted their advice but eventually eclipsed them all and soon became their recognized leader, although he was younger.”

He married a woman named Paula and had three children with her: one who died as an infant, one who died at the end of World War II, and one who was born after Peter’s death.

As you can tell, Peter’s life was not an easy one.

When World War II started, Japan extended their reach and occupied Papua New Guinea. Their first act was to imprison all the missionaries. The priests and nuns were rounded up and Peter and the other lay catechists were the only ones left to keep the faith of the local people alive.

And they did just that.

Peter organized secret meetings in caves to hold prayer services, catechetical lessons, and administer Baptisms and wedding ceremonies.

Then, one by one, Peter and the other remaining catechists were called before police officers and told that there was a complete ban on the Catholic religion. Peter attempted to argue with them over why his practice of the Faith had nothing to do with the war, but he was scolded and sent home.

Despite this threat, Peter befriended the Japanese officers patrolling the town. Because he treated them with kindness and sincerity, they would allow him to get away with secret services. Peter was able to soften their hearts through the love of Christ.

He emboldened his fellow Catholics by telling them, “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.”

But when the war was drawing to a close and Japan was desperately trying to delay their impending defeat, all the local authorities were replaced with new soldiers who were more merciless. 

The new Japanese officials banned all forms of worship other than that of their emperor. And they wouldn’t let Peter get away with secret meetings. They tried to entice all the religious to renounce their faith and abandon Christianity. They chose to tempt the local men by telling them that under the Japanese laws they would be allowed to have more than one wife.

Some, including even Peter’s brother, succumbed to this temptation. But Peter remained steadfast and firm in the moral teaching of the Church. Peter said, “The Japanese cannot stop us loving God and obeying laws! We must be strong and we must refuse to give in to them.”

He was the loudest catechist in protesting against polygamy and was finally arrested and imprisoned in 1945. 

During a prison visit, he told his wife and mother: “I know they are trying to kill me. I will die for the Church.”

A fellow prisoner reported his own account: “He was often visited in prison by his aged mother and his wife, who brought him food every day. At one of their last visits, To Rot said to his mother: the police have told me that the Japanese doctor will be coming to give me some medicine. I suspect that this is a trick. I am really not ill at all and I cannot think what all this means.”

Shortly after this visit, the other prisoners saw guards enter Peter’s cell, inject something into him and leave quickly. Almost immediately, Peter fell to the ground, struggling. By the morning, he was dead. And when the soldiers found him, they pretended to be surprised by his death.

The people of Papua New Guinea told and retold his story until there was a strong local devotion to him. Many reported that local hospitals saw countless healings due to the intercession of Peter To Rot. Unfortunately, these are hard to verify because of multiple languages, multiple retellings, and a lack of written record. But after John Paul II examined Peter’s courageously virtuous life, the miracle requirement of his canonization process was waved.

Pope John Paul II said of Peter To Rot:

“Inspired by his faith in Christ, he was a devoted husband, a loving father and a dedicated catechist known for his kindness, gentleness and compassion. Daily Mass and Holy Communion, and frequent visits to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, sustained him, gave him wisdom to counsel the disheartened, and courage to persevere until death . . . His witness to the Gospel inspired others, in very difficult situations, because he lived his Christian life so purely and joyfully.”

May we be inspired by Peter To Rot’s life to stand courageously for truth and righteousness, and proudly defend the sanctity of marriage.

Almighty and merciful God, who brought your Martyr blessed Peter to overcome the torments of his passion, grant that we, who celebrate the day of his triumph, may remain invincible under your protection against the snares of the enemy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

Amen.
– Prayer via Aleteia

Quotes from Peter’s peers via Catholic News Agency.

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Since an early age, writer Beckie Gautreau has been lost in a world of imagination, writing fantastical tales of adventure and virtue. Since the same early age, she has had a deep love for God and things of heaven. You could say that her head is in the clouds in more ways than one!

From high school until the present, she has been joining whatever writing clubs she could, starting them when necessary. In college, she majored in Drama and Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX, while taking as many creative writing classes as possible.

Being a homeschooling mom of four, she doesn’t have a lot of free time, but she uses the little she has on writing fiction and fantasy novels and meeting God in her garden.