Belo hails second E. Timor bishop
Belo hails second E. Timor bishop
JAKARTA (JP): Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Filipe Belo hailed yesterday the papal appointment of a second bishop to work with him in the former Portuguese colony.
"I believe that God has chosen a good shepherd for you ... he is an intelligent and competent bishop," Belo said in a pastoral letter dated Saturday and sent to all parishes in East Timor.
On Saturday, Pope John Paul II appointed a new bishop, Basilio Do Nascimento, to work alongside Belo and take charge of the Baucau diocese, where 200,000 Catholics live. The new bishop will be officially installed at the Vatican on January 6.
Do Nascimento will be in charge of the Manatuto, Baucau, Viqueque and Lautem districts, which have nine parishes: Manatuto, Soibada, Baucacu, Venilale, Ossu, Viqueque, Watulani, Laga and Lospalos. He will start working on March 10.
The Dili diocese, the main one on the territory and administered by Belo, is where 500,000 Catholics live.
"With all my strength, I have served the community in the new diocese for 13 years, while at the same time being aware of my human and spiritual limitations, " Belo said.
"I will keep on praying for you from Dili and together with your (new) bishop, I will strive to defend human rights and uphold peace and prosperity in our region," Belo added.
Belo was joint winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, with East Timorese separatist leader activist Jose Ramos Horta.
The move to bolster the presence of the Roman Catholic Church in the territory comes after Belo met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican recently and called for his help in supporting his work in East Timor.
East Timor integrated into Indonesia in 1976, but the United Nations still considers Lisbon the administering power in the territory.
Reuters quoted Florentino Sarmento, a prominent member of the Catholic church's Commission for Justice and Peace in Dili, as saying that Nascimento was a sociologist who had graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris.
Nascimento, who lived in Portugal for 27 years, returned to East Timor two years ago and had been long regarded as the favorite to head the new diocese.
"He is a very modest and reserved man but very much an intellectual," Sarmento said, adding Nascimento's "contextual" sermons were popular in Dili, where he had served as Belo's assistant since his return.
Fluent in French and Portuguese, Nascimento had recently been studying Indonesian in the city of Yogyakarta. (swe)