Pope Francis honoured the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he celebrated Mass in Papua New Guinea before heading to a remote part of the South Pacific nation with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.

An estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital Port Moresby for the morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar. In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.