Nothing is Too Profane

If you think the church is only concerned about the after life, think twice or come to Papua. The church here becomes very much part of the everydayness. Nothing is too profane to take care of. Sometimes it even involves cultivating and selling bananas or beans ;-). That’s what Father Anton Tromp, OSA, does. Well, among so many other things of course.

He is now the rector of Pieter Van Diepen Seminary in Aimas, Sorong Regency where I spend 2 days a week teaching. He is also in the financial board of the Diocese of Manokwari-Sorong, the board of LBH in Manokwari and AMA in Jayapura, the Prior of the Augustinian Order, and many other things. But don’t expect him to be that typical bureaucratic, religious leader who is waiting to be served or who is concerned only with the after life. He is certainly not. In fact, he’s so down to earth. He does all sort of things that a religious leader in other places might be reluctant to do. I’ve seen him sitting with some students sorting out beans that they were going to sell to town. He took the broom and swept the floor afterwards. One day when we were talking in his place some locals came in with a dead boar. They caught the boar but they did not know where else to go to sell it but to him. Fr Tromp weighed it and bought it at the market price, Rp 25.000/kg.

I certainly got the impression that he’s more than just a priest there. The other day I also saw some locals who came to him to tell him about someone who had been drawn in the sea for a few days but the body had not been found up to that moment. And I’ve heard someone in Manokwari who’s having a problem with his house called him up for help. They come to him with problems, real problems to be solved. In other words, he is their actual leader. Moreover, I just heard from other priests that the people around the place love him a lot.

Talking to him about Papua is like talking to an encyclopedia. He knows so much about Papua. He said to me, “I know most of Papuan. Pick one name and I could tell you what his/her father or family has done in the past. I know all of their sins.” Isn’t he funny? But it’s probably true because he has been living in Papua for 37 years. He came to Papua in 1970 when he’s 24. He’s been in Papua longer than he had been in the Netherlands, his original homeland. He is now an Indonesian citizen.

Fr Tromp is an illustration of the role of the churches in Papua which is certainly not to be underrated though of course not all priests are loveable and serving like him ;-). The churches had been here long before the government (Indonesia) came. Papua just joined the Republic of Indonesia after the referendum (Pepera) in 1963 while the missionaries had already been here since around 1855. These missionaries were the ones, with small air crafts, who went to those remote, isolated places where no one had ever stepped foot before. They, both Protestant and Catholic, play a significant role here in Papua. In the past, the Dutch arranged that the Protestant went to the north and the Catholic went to the south. It’s all different now though I could somehow still feel the sentiment. I was asked so many times about my religion. I don’t quite know how to answer it. Faith is a tricky subject to define ;-).