Peter To Rot
Papuan catholic saint
Feast: 7 July (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Peter To Rot was born in 1912 at Rakunai on New Britain, now in Papua New Guinea, third of six children of a village chief; both his parents were baptised as adults among the first generation of Christians there.
A catechist, husband and father, from 1936 he was loved throughout Rakunai. When the Japanese occupiers banned religious practice and many catechists abandoned their work out of fear, he carried on an exemplary apostolate; arrested for it, he was martyred by lethal injection in 1945.
The miracles
As a martyr, beatified without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A catechist and father who kept the faith alive under occupation and died a martyr.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Peter To Rot
- Wikidata Q15995788 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Peter To Rot (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.