Catholics

In the Catholic Church, Advent is a period of preparation, extending over four Sundays, before Christmas.

At the St Joseph Parish in Port Moresby, Father Paul explained that the first candle that was lit last Sunday represents Hope in Christ.

It is to remind Catholic faithful of Jesus Christ, the saviour born a king in the line of King David and the belief that he will come again to fulfill all of God’s promises to mankind.

The second candle lit today was the candle of peace.

The main celebrant was his eminence Cardinal Sir John Ribat, who congratulated the Taurama community for organising an interdenominational service.

“And this is the truth about what we are celebrating today, doesn’t matter what religion we come from, Jesus is our Lord, Jesus is our Saviour,” said Sir John.

His main message was for Christians to remain steadfast to the Word of God.

He said today’s world, with the advent of technology, has changed the lives of many Papua New Guineans and while progress was welcomed, therein lies a lot of temptations as well.

And never in the church history on Bougainville a huge crowd and traffic congestion was experienced but today only from the airport up to the Hahela church it took a full hour to reach the Kubu hilltop from the Buka airport.

The statue of our lady of Fatima arrived on an Air niugini flight to a huge crowd.

Police were engaged to provide security and control the traffic.

The statue was flown in from Port Moresby and will tour the whole of the autonomous Region of Bougainville including the very remote parishes like Nissan Island and Paruparu.

Francis will release the new rules after a Vatican-appointed commission of canon lawyers spent the past year studying ways to simplify the process while safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, the Vatican said.

Catholic doctrine holds that a church marriage is forever. An annulment is a judgment by a church tribunal that the marriage had some inherent defect from the start. Reasons vary, including that the couple never intended their marriage to last or that one of the spouses didn't want children.