Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi

A global church leader emerges from the humble peripheries of Polynesia

By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald

When Pope Francis named Bishop Soane Patita Paini Mafi a cardinal a year ago, the Tongan church leader didn’t see it coming. “There was no warning at all,” he said.

“It was really, really a surprise.”

But given time to think about it, he said it made some sense.

From the start, Pope Francis has given his attention to what he calls “the peripheries,” those people and places ignored for being too distant, too small, too unimportant. Francis himself comes from a poor country at the bottom of the Americas.

“So when I thought, ‘Why me?’” Cardinal Mafi said, the answer was simple: “This was Pope Francis.”

“The pope wanted to reach to the peripheries, and you know, Tonga is very much in the peripheries.”

Indeed. Situated 3,000 miles southwest of Hawaii amid the numerous constellations of Polynesian islands, Tonga is nearly impossible to find on the map.

It is there that he cares for a flock of about 15,000 Catholics.

Cardinal Mafi visited Hawaii for four days last month at the official invitation of Bishop Larry Silva.

“He invited me almost immediately after being a named cardinal,” Cardinal Mafi told the Hawaii Catholic Herald in an interview Jan. 18 at Sacred Hearts Center in Kaneohe where he was staying.

“I was quite happy to say yes,” he said, for the opportunity to meet local residents and also Tongans who have made Hawaii their home.

The cardinal celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving with the bishop on Jan. 16 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu and the next day presided over a Mass for Hawaii’s Tongan community at St. Augustine Church in Waikiki.

Wearing a plain black clerical shirt and a black lavalava, Cardinal Mafi talked to the Herald about his beloved Tongan church, his encounters with the pope and his call to priesthood. His voice is warm and calming. He smiles easily.

The cardinal’s silver pectoral cross was the one given to synod bishops by the leader of the Neo-Catechumenal Way. His gold episcopal ring, molded with the tiny images of St. Peter and St. Paul, was a gift from Pope Francis to all the new cardinals.

Despite his relative youth and far-flung diocese, the Tongan bishop isn’t a complete unknown in Rome. He has already participated in two synods of bishops, one called by Pope Benedict XVI and the most recent Synod on the Family convened by Pope Francis. He had made “interventions,” written and verbal contributions to the discussions, at both gatherings.

His first meeting with the present pope was a passing exchange at the Vatican before he was named a cardinal.

“We shook hands and I said I am from Tonga,” he said.

The country did not ring a bell with the pope until Bishop Mafi explained that it was in “Oceania.”

That’s when a photographer captured the Holy Father “stretching his arm” acknowledging the island nation’s location: “far away.”

“I knew then he knew where Tonga was,” the cardinal said.

The two men also chatted briefly during synod breaks.

Their most recent encounter, a chance meeting in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the guesthouse where the pope lives, confirmed that the pope was familiar with the cardinal’s biography.

“I was walking toward the dining room and he was coming out to return to his room,” Cardinal Mafi said. “We met just outside the elevator, and he looked at me and shook my hand and said, ‘Hello, baby cardinal …’”

At 54, Cardinal Mafi is the youngest in the 216-member College of Cardinals. Surprised by the affectionate greeting, he immediately told a group of cardinals having dinner in the dining room. The memory still elicits a bashful grin.

He looks forward to more formal meetings in the future.

THE CHURCH IN TONGA

Tongan Catholics are “quite vibrant, quite active,” Cardinal Mafi said. The diocese’s geography does pose difficulties, however.

“The islands are so scattered and that is one challenge,” he said.

The cardinal visits all the islands on a three-year cycle. The diocese has about 14 parishes.

“Ecumenically, we are very, very close to the other churches,” he said. Tonga’s largest denominations are the Methodists and the Mormons.

“We are only 15 percent Catholic so, I guess, small enough for one bishop,” he said. “I have a good number of priests and a good vicar general who is my assistant. So when I am away, he does the general running of the diocese.”

“I have about 28 priests altogether, enough at the moment,” he said, “Thank God we still have vocations — mostly local priests.”

Although his diocese is tiny and remote, the cardinal believes it has much to offer the global church.

“There is always something we can give,” he said.

As examples, he listed “the simplicity of the lifestyle of the people” and the strong emphasis on the “still intact family, the nuclear family to the extended family” that endures in spite of the “globalization that is already coming to our shores.”

In Tonga, it is the family structure that preserves the faith, he said.

He noted what he saw at the Mass at St. Augustine Church the day before. “Children are still very much with their parents, very much involved in the church.”

“These are the times that lay people can witness with a good, solid Catholic foundation at home,” he said. “Hopefully, as they move overseas, they take the faith with them, living out their faith in whatever they do.”

“It is good to see that here in the last few days,” he said.

That was his message to the St. Augustine gathering. “I was encouraging them, empowering them to continue on, especially their families. To look after their families, after their children, to do a little prayer at home. To show by example the commitment of husband and wife to their children. We really, really need that today.”

“We are in a world with so many challenges that distract our lives from what is essential with regards to our faith.”

One authentic expression of faith, the cardinal said, is Tonga’s embrace of choral singing.

“In every choir I saw there were youth, something that we hardly experience in Europe and other parts of the world,” he said.

“God has given us that gift of the love of singing. In almost every village there are choirs. It is so beautiful to see that. That is what I said last night. I thank them for their singing, because it brings the members together to worship. If there were no choirs, there would be empty chairs. The singing brings them together.”

DISTRACTED YEARNINGS

Cardinal Mafi was born in the Tongan capitol of Nuku’alofa on Dec. 19, 1961, the son and grandson of catechists.

Thoughts of priesthood came early.

“It had always been there since I was a kid. But then there were times when it was clouded by other distractions.”

“I guess my upbringing played a big role here. My parents were both good Catholics, my mom was a convert. Our home was next to the presbytery. I was an altar boy.”

But after graduating from high school, instead of joining his classmates at the University of the South Pacific, he bided his time working in a small retail store.

Meanwhile his friends were wondering what he was up to. “They kept asking me, what are you doing?”

“They did not know what was really inside. Inside I was still thinking, ‘What is my real call?’ It became so strong that, in 1981, I decided to go and see the bishop.”

“The bishop looked at me and I am sure wanted to ask the right questions straight from the start. So he asked me, ‘Do you know Jesus?’”

Unsure of how to answer, the young Mafi said, “Maybe.”

The bishop then asked him if he had ever “fallen in love …” When the youth hesitated, the bishop added, “… with Jesus?”

“If you want to become a priest, it is a big challenge,” the bishop told Mafi. “It is not easy.”

“The main thing about being a priest is to know the Lord, the one who calls us,” the bishop said. “So make friends with him.”

Cardinal Mafi said he learned that, “unless we do that, our vocation is meaningless.”

Mafi studied at the Pacific Regional Seminary in Suva, Fiji, and was ordained a priest on June 29, 1991. He spent his first four years as a parish priest on one of Tonga’s outer islands. In 1995, he became vicar general.

He studied at Loyola College in Baltimore for three years, graduating in 2000, after which he assisted in the training of local priests in Fiji. Father Mafi was named coadjutor (successor) bishop of Tonga on Oct. 4, 2007, and Bishop of Tonga on April 18, 2008, the first Tongan diocesan priest to be named a bishop.

The cardinal has five brothers and one sister, all of whom live in Tonga except for a brother who resides in San Mateo, California. His father died the year he was ordained a priest. His mother died the year he was appointed bishop.

Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal, a first for Tonga, at the Vatican last Feb. 14.

The bishop’s unprecedented honor was justification for a big national party, but because it coincided with Lent, Cardinal Mafi had an excuse to tone it down a bit and delay it until after Easter. Still the celebration went on for two days.

The first day was a customary presentation of the new cardinal to the nation’s monarch, King Tupou VI. The second day was devoted to eating and dancing.

“So many pigs killed,” Cardinal Mafi said softly.

BUSY BISHOP GETS BUSIER

Cardinal Mafi has been a busy bishop, and will be an even busier cardinal.

He is president of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific (CEPAC), which covers 16 archdioceses, dioceses and mission areas in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, including Guam, New Caledonia, Samoa, Fiji and French Polynesia.

As a member of the college of cardinals, he will be one of the pope’s advisors. He will also be one of those who will elect the next pope. As a cardinal he himself is a possible candidate.

Cardinal Mafi was recently appointed as a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum for Human and Christian Development. These and other duties will require him to make the 28-hour trip to Rome two, maybe three, times a year.

“Travel certainly will take up a lot of my time,” he said. “I have surprised a lot of cardinals who have been asking me about that. I tell them about 27-28 hours all together.”

His normal route is Tonga to Auckland, to Hong Kong, to Frankfurt, to Rome, though sometimes it’s Tonga, Auckland, Melbourne, Dubai, Rome.

A participant in last October’s Synod on the Family, Cardinal Mafi praised the candid deliberations encouraged by Pope Francis as a chance to listen prayerfully to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The pope, he said, appealed to participants to “be open, to come with an open mind and an open heart, to think together, pray together and share. To me that was progress already. I felt it too.”

“I could sense the pope opening up, telling us not to be afraid,” Cardinal Mafi said.

“We could see where his mind and heart is. To me, this is the direction the church should go, listening and not being too rigid.

“I think Pope Francis is leading the way in listening to the Spirit,” he said. “One of the things that was really obvious was his counsel for us shepherds and priests to reach out to the people, to listen to them.

“We have to do that first part, reach out to the divorced, the homosexual, listen to them, accept them, be tender with them and loving, then who knows, the Spirit will blow wherever he likes.”

The times call for a man like Pope Francis, Cardinal Mafi said. “He is a good model.”

HAWAII-TONGA LINKS

The Catholic links between Hawaii and Tonga are getting stronger, Cardinal Mafi said.

The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary recently established a mission in the capital of Nuku‘alofa headed by Hawaii-born Father Clyde Guerreiro.

Cardinal Mafi has visited Hawaii twice before, the first time 10 years ago as a priest attending the ordination of his nephew, Sacred Hearts Father Johnathan Hurrell. He came again five years ago, this time as bishop. He also ran into Bishop Silva at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

“So our relationship with Hawaii is stronger now, thanks to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. So it’s just like coming to a second home.”

Father Hurrell is not the only relative the cardinal has in Hawaii. He said he has “quite a few” cousins here, on both his father’s and mother’s side, and former classmates. He met many of them at the Mass at St. Augustine Church.

“It was really good to see them. Some faces I have not seen for a long, long time.”

Back home in Tonga, the cardinal is able to take take a break from the toil of episcopal duties.

“I have a little treadmill in my room,” he said. “Yes, I love exercise. I used to play tennis but no longer now. But I walk, I read.”

“I like thinking, reflecting, writing down my thoughts … especially for preparing homilies. I just like quiet.”

He likes visiting family and friends, often dropping by one of his brothers’ houses to chat over a cup of tea.

He also enjoys “sitting around the bowl of kava and just talking.”

“It’s a kind of relaxing thing,” he said of the traditional Polynesian drink. “Kava is kind of soothing, it calms down the nerves in a way. I love just sitting around, talking about ordinary things with people, just hearing their stories.”

One story still fresh on his mind was that of a fellow priest who recently died of cancer. He said it illustrated the “mystery” of God’s ways.

“Before I came to Hawaii, I buried one of my priests, a classmate of mine,” he said.

“He wasn’t an intellectual, he was more of a simple-hearted fellow,” said the cardinal. “He was loved by the people.”

At the funeral the cardinal told the mourners, “You know, life is a mystery. We grew up together in school not knowing we would both end up as priests. I was ordained first, then him after five years or so, and here I stand to bury him.”

“I never thought this was how it would end,” he said, two unlikely men implausibly bonded by a “longing for the priesthood.”

“It is good to realize our weaknesses,” he said. “It’s like the saying, ‘God writes straight with crooked lines.’”

“God’s ways are mysterious,” he said.

The world’s first Tongan cardinal would know how true that is.