{"id":52675,"date":"2015-03-15T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www1.romereports.com\/2015\/03\/15\/cardinal-soane-patita-paini-mafi-tonga-has-much-to-contribute-to-the-church\/"},"modified":"2015-03-15T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T07:00:00","slug":"cardinal-soane-patita-paini-mafi-tonga-has-much-to-contribute-to-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/2015\/03\/15\/cardinal-soane-patita-paini-mafi-tonga-has-much-to-contribute-to-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi: Tonga has much to contribute to the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>None of the new cardinals created by Pope Francis on February 14 were as unlikely as Soane Patita Paini Mafi. The 53-year-old comes from Tonga, a nation of just 100,000 people. It took him more than 24 hours of travel to reach Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Cardinal Mafi said he thinks that while his nation is small, its people have much to offer the Universal Church.<\/p>\n<p>CARD. SOANE PATITA PAINI MAFI<br \/>\nBISHOP OF TONGA<br \/>\n'Our sense of God, our respect for the Mystery. Respect for communal, living together, sharing. That is a big value, sharing the poverty we have, the little we have.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The Tongan cardinal said he was surprsied when he became a bishop. Rising to cardinal was even more of a shock. But he seemed prepared for the greater responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>CARD. SOANE PATITA PAINI MAFI<br \/>\nBISHOP OF TONGA<br \/>\n'I am sure there will be greater responsibility. But perhaps I think this way more, I am looking forward for more of this richness of the Church, the msytery of the Church.\u00e2?\u009d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At his age, the new cardinal could participate in more than one Conclave. He joked that while he is the youngest in the group, he doesn't necessarily look like it.<\/p>\n<p>CARD. SOANE PATITA PAINI MAFI<br \/>\nBISHOP OF TONGA<br \/>\n'I'm 53! I don't feel that that's young. I got gray hairs more than other, older ones. But I think it's an honor to be called while I am still young.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Tongans from throughout the world joined the newly-created cardinal in Rome for the special moment. He said that it was an important day not just for him, but for his entire nation.<\/p>\n<p>ATO<br \/>\nAA\/MG<br \/>\nSV<br \/>\n-PR<br \/>\nUp: GRT<br \/>\n#NewCardinals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 15, 2015. ;The Tongan was surprised but filled with joy at his selection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":52676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/UbbFFn636qc","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/","international_url":"http:\/\/romereports.com.edgesuite.net\/news\/bentervistatongaint.mov","type":"rrp","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}