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Pope Francis lately introduced that on 27 August 2022 he would make the archbishop of Dili, Dom Virgilio do Carmo da Costa, a cardinal. The church in tiny East Timor, inhabitants 1.3 million, most of whom are Catholics, has come a great distance in a short while. Its centuries-long historical past in East Timor not withstanding, Archbishop Virgilio is simply the fourth East Timorese to move up the native church, the primary archbishop and now the primary cardinal.
The Pope’s alternative of Dom Virgilio displays his laudable dedication to the peripheral church of the South and his want that the common face of the church be mirrored in its management. Many of the new appointments are from exterior Europe; six are from Asia.
However that’s not the total story. The Vatican has each purpose to be pleased with East Timor, now essentially the most Catholic nation in Asia. In simply 4 a long time, Catholic numbers have tripled from an estimated thirty p.c of the inhabitants in 1975 after centuries of Portuguese rule to round ninety seven p.c right this moment. The church is acknowledged within the nation’s Structure and, after a tough patch in 2005, it now enjoys an in depth working relationship with the federal government.
This has paid good-looking dividends for each the church and the federal government. Inter alia, President Jose Ramos-Horta has been photographed with each Pope Benedict and Pope Francis and has performed up his Catholicism in election campaigns; substantial allocations of ‘state assist’ have been obtained for buildings and different church actions, prompting complaints of discrimination by non-catholic non secular organisations; most Catholic holy days are public holidays; a towering statue of Pope John Paul II stands on a hill prime trying throughout Dili bay to one among Cristo Rei.
In return, the church minds its personal enterprise and engages in a spread of actions together with vocational coaching and wonderful instructional companies, delivered by numerous worldwide non secular orders. The partnership was deepened in 2015 with the finalisation of an historic bi-lateral Concordat. Its Vatican signatory was none apart from its quantity two, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who visited Timor that 12 months to have a good time the nation’s fifth centenary of Catholicism.
This can be a far cry from the latest Indonesian period when church and state had been at loggerheads. Nevertheless, it was by no means envisaged, simply the opposite. In 1981, through the seemingly irreversible Indonesian occupation, a Vatican diplomat informed me that East Timor should resign itself to being a part of Indonesia and, like a latter day Israel, settle for God’s plan to be an island of religion in a Muslim sea.
In a terrific irony, nonetheless, it was majority-Muslim Indonesia that drove the East Timorese into the arms of the church. Determined to protect their tradition, identification and human rights within the face of the Indonesian navy’s onslaught and imposition of the state pancasila ideology, peculiar East Timorese turned to the church en masse. With the Resistance confined to the mountains, the church alone was in a position to provide sanctuary and a voice. A lot of its clergy and spiritual stepped up magnificently led initially by Dom Martinho da Costa Lopes, East Timor’s first indigenous head of the church, then by his successor, Dom Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo. A Salesian like Dom Virgilio, Bishop Belo is the catholic church’s solely ever Nobel Laureate.
The Timorese church, nonetheless, shouldn’t be over-rated. Some, for instance, have wrongly concluded that its position through the warfare with Indonesia implies that it espoused liberation theology. It’s, the truth is, a deeply conventional church, arguably pre-Vatican II in fashion akin to the church of my youth within the Fifties. Permitting for notable exceptions, clergymen get pleasure from a caste-like authority and standing. Laity are junior companions to the clergy. Devotions to Our Woman of Fatima, St Anthony and different saints within the type of processions and different common practices are mainstream and inspired. This fashion is arguably suited to Timor’s tradition and present circumstances, however its sustainability amongst its rising and modernising youth inhabitants and educated Timorese is uncertain.
Whereas the church has its arms full serving its massive membership, a giant problem is to work out what its position must be in post-war Timor. Quite than entrench its snug established order, Cardinal Virgilio, educated within the Philippines and from an order expert in youth training, should make sure that the church’s new standing is used to maneuver it in the direction of the mannequin advocated by Pope Francis.
Sixtus Harson, writing for UCA in Jakarta, has famous a associated problem, that of the church’s relationship with the federal government. He stresses that ‘the cardinal should safeguard the Church’s prophetic mission in Timor-Leste, the place private pursuits typically decide politics and the method of democracy’ and asks will the cardinal’s elevation ‘amplify the voice of the individuals’.
Because the nation approaches the cliff of declining oil income, will the church use its new authority to make sure that the pursuits of East Timor’s majority poor, most of them Catholic, are extra clearly heard by the federal government?
Pat Walsh is the creator of The Day Hope and Historical past Rhymed in East Timor and Different East Timor Tales (2019). Pat served as particular adviser to East Timor’s CAVR fee, and helped design the nation’s successor physique, Centro Nasional Chega!, to which he’s an advisor.
This text was initially printed on Eureka Road, a publication of the Australian Jesuits. Reproduced with permission.
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