Nuncio: Ordinary people keep faith alive under duress

In an interview with Wellington Archdiocese’s WelCom newsletter, Archbishop Gábor Pintér, the Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand and several other Pacific nations, said that if he could describe his role in one word it would be “coordination”.

Archbishop Pintér said that one example of bridging faith and diplomacy is his work to help ensure the free functioning of the Catholic Church without government interference, so that Catholics can do things like attend Mass without being persecuted.

While there is freedom to practise the Catholic faith in New Zealand, this hasn’t always been the case in nations where the archbishop has served as a diplomat.

One example was his time as Apostolic Nuncio to Belarus. The Eastern European nation was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Today it is a close ally of Russia and has supported the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Archbishop Pintér described a “miracle” of Catholic faith in Belarus surviving the Soviet Union in a decades-long period that lasted for much of the 20th century, when atheism was enforced and Christians were openly mocked and persecuted by the government.

Grandparents, who remembered a time before the Soviet Union, would pass the faith on in secret to their grandchildren, at risk of imprisonment in gulags if they were caught. These grandchildren then passed faith on to their own descendants.

Today, 35 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Archbishop Pintér said the Church in Belarus has grown from being at risk of extinction to an estimated two million Catholics – about 20 per cent of the total population.

Archbishop Pintér said a lesson that can be learned from this is that everyday people can keep faith alive and nurture it. 

FULL STORY

Bridging faith and diplomacy: a conversation with the Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand (WelCom/Archdiocese of Wellington)