North suburban priest fought drug scourge

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Father William Liebert obit photo. Surrounded by people he helped in New Guinea

Updated: August 25, 2011 12:31AM

Even on the hottest days of summer, the Rev. William “Bill” Liebert wore a coat.

After spending 49 years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea — where the coldest night might dip as low as 73 degrees — it was understandable that he’d find August in Chicago relatively cool.

Father Liebert, whose drug-fighting work on the other side of the world got him slapped around by thugs from Papua New Guinea’s “raskol gangs” — and earned him the enmity of Chinese mobsters — died of kidney failure May 6 at the Divine Word Missionaries house in Techny, north of Glenview, where he had lived since 2006. He was 81.

Though he was director general of Papua New Guinea’s National Narcotics Bureau from 1992 to 2001, according to the missionaries, he considered his most important work to have been his effort to keep boys out of adult prisons, where they might be sexually exploited and graduate to more serious levels of criminality. He not only represented them in court, but he also helped create Boys Town, an institution in the coastal town of Wewak that fed, housed and educated juveniles accused of crimes.

The children there called him by the pidgin name “Pata Bill.”

Father Liebert grew up about as far from Papua New Guinea as you can get, in Coffeyville, Kan. His family owned a farm that grew corn, wheat and soybeans.

He always wanted to be a priest, according to his nieces, Caroline Law and Mary Liebert. After he was ordained in Techny, “He wanted to do something exciting,” said the Rev. Donald O’Connor, a fellow missionary who served 35 years with him in Papua New Guinea.

In 1957, Father Liebert was sent to Papua New Guinea. To Western armchair travelers, almost nowhere is as exotic and confounding. Papua New Guinea takes up the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, which is just north of Australia. The western half of the island is part of Indonesia. At one time, the region’s seas were roamed by fierce sailor-pirates known as the Bugis, so feared that their name is said to have been the basis for the term “boogeyman.” Papua New Guinea has more than 860 languages, and much of its rocky terrain is so isolating, indigenous peoples may not know of tribes only miles away, according to the U.S. State Department. As recently as 2006, some members of the Korowai tribe — on the Indonesian side of the island — told Smithsonian Magazine they practiced cannibalism on witches. An estimated 40 percent of the adult population can’t read or write. Life expectancy is 54 years for men and 56 for women.

As Papua New Guinea became more Westernized, modern-day scourges took root, including AIDS, gun violence and drugs such as crystal meth and marijuana dubbed “New Guinea Gold.”

One of Father Liebert’s finest moments occurred around 2003, said O’Connor. Smugglers were trying to route ephedrine through China, India and the crime-ridden Papua New Guinea town of Port Moresby to make “ice” — crystal meth. Through his many sources, “Bill got wind of that,” O’Connor said. “He made the authorities aware of it.”

He was “working against the Chinese mafia,” O’Connor said. “He was really what I would call a modern-day St. Paul. He was chased and even beat up by people.”

He also represented the prime minister of Papua New Guinea at United Nations anti-drug conferences in Vienna and other major cities, according to the Divine Word Missionaries.

A pipe smoker, he developed throat cancer about 20 years ago, his nieces said. At first, it silenced him, but he learned to speak again despite having to have surgery on his throat.

His letters home were lyrical, his nieces said. He wrote about the island’s big snakes, including a python that became a pet.

The distance and expense were so great that he could come home only about every five years. When he visited Kansas, he couldn’t get enough fried chicken. When you asked for fried chicken in Papua New Guinea, he’d say, you never were sure just what you were getting. He always brought his nieces beautiful seashells, or bags made of New Guinea vines.

When his nieces visited him in Techny, Father Liebert’s adventures were more prosaic. He liked to go to the bookstore with them, or shop for vitamins.

He also is survived by a brother, Robert, and two other nieces, Ann Marie Vannoster and Jane Liebert. A memorial service was held Wednesday. He will be buried on the grounds of the Sacred Heart Monastery in Wewak, Papua New Guinea.