Pope names head of E. Timor church

Pope names head of E. Timor church

ITALY: Pope John Paul appointed on Saturday a new head of the
Roman Catholic church in East Timor to succeed Nobel Peace
Laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, who has stepped down for health
reasons.

The pope named Alberto Ricardo da Silva, 60, who has been
rector of the seminary in the capital Dili since 2000, to succeed
Belo as Bishop of Dili, a Vatican statement said.

Belo resigned in November 2002, citing ill health.

The outspoken and often fiery Belo shared the Nobel Peace
Prize with then exiled resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta -- now
East Timor's foreign minister -- in 1996 for working toward a
peaceful solution to the territory's occupation by Indonesia.

Predominantly Catholic East Timor voted to break from 24 years
of Jakarta rule in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999, which
unleashed a wave of violence by pro-Jakarta militiamen in which
the UN estimates more than 1,000 people were killed. -- Reuters