Capuchin Priest

Planted Coconuts In New Guinea 50 Years Ago

i N 88-year-old Capuchin priest, who founded a a- coconut plantation in New Guinea 50 years ago, jlebrated the occasion in Rome on May 3. He is ather Callistus Lopinot, OFM, Cap., who has already debrated his 70th anniversary as a Capuchin and his Dth as a priest.

The plantation that Father Callistus founded is at rayaba, near Madang, and is now part of the Alexis afen Catholic Mission.

Father Callistus, now bowed and grey, arrived in lew Guinea on May 3, 1914, as a member of the !atholic Mission then known as the Vicariate Apostolic f the Mariana and Caroline Islands. This mission was at off from overseas economic aid and had to under ike plantation work to be self-supporting.

Father Callistus started cutting down the Gayaba ingle with 22 workers from the adjoining Danip rice lantation on May 25, 1914; and by June, 1919, with le help of 100 workers, had already planted 325 of is 500 hectares.

In the week before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, the Japanese removed the 'apuchin missionaries from the Mariana and Caroline slands to Yokohama, and the mission and Gayaba lantation passed into the hands of the Jesuits.

Two Spanish Jesuits took over the Gayaba plantation a February, 1921, and after Father Callistus introduced tiem to plantation work, he left in June, just as the rees were beginning to bear their first nuts.

An Australian Jesuit from Sydney, Father Brennan, yas next placed in charge, and then the Spanish Jesuit 7 ather Guimera, a professor. The plantation then be :ame the property of the Alexishafen Catholic Mission.

From 1921 to 1932 Father Callistus served as Mission Jecretary at the international headquarters of the Capu :hins in Rome, and from 1932 to 1937 held the office )f Prefect Apostolic with the title of Monsignor at Mossi Be in Madagascar.

In 1937 he was named Consultor to the Vatican’s Propagation of the Faith Congregation, an office he lolds to the present day.

Father Callistus still has a journal that he kept from May 3, 1914, the day he arrived in New Guinea, until June 19, 1921, the day he left. This journal is today a valuable historical document and Father Callis tus has placed it at the disposal of the author of this article who is writing a history of Catholic missions in mainland New Guinea.

Father Callistus still has a host of memories from the seven years that he spent in New Guinea, and on April 18 he was able to share them with Brother Serenus Lindemann, SVD, a Divine Word missionary who ran the coconut plantation at Mugil Catholic Mission near Alelxishafen for seven years before World War 11.

Recently Father Callistus sent greetings to Brother Nyssenus Boek, SVD, 79, bookkeeper at Alexishafen Mission whom he remembers well. He also remembers Father Peter Ladener, SVD, 79, at Alexishafen, who was the first Divine Word Priest to reach the golden jubilee of his ordination in New Guinea, and Father Iwo Schaefer, SVD, 77, at Marienberg on the Sepik River, who has also since celebrated his golden jubilee.

And he remembers Father Theodore Averberg, SVD, 76, now stationed in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany, who trained him in plantation work and managed the flourishing Danip rice fields.

Father Callistus says he had a very close friendship with Monsignor Eberhard Limbrock, SVD, the Divine Word missionary from China who headed a band of three priests and three brothers who landed at Madang (then Friedrich Wilhelmshafen) on August 13, 1896, and pioneered Catholic mission work on the north eastern coast of New Guinea.

Father Callistus is still extremely interested in the progress of Christian missions in New Guinea, and speaks with wonder of the progress made in the High lands, which, he says, “had not been penetrated in my day”. • Father Callistus, who came originally from Alsace-Lorraine, is pictured above with Dr. Wiltgen, the author of this article.—Divine Word Photo.

rom Rev. Dr. Ralph M. Wiltgen, SVD, in Rome