Catholic Church

The question may be asked:  What has been the role of the Catholic church in Timor, considering the large proportion of Catholics, (93%, 2003 Annuario Pontificio figure) even after the settlement of over a hundred thousand Indonesians?   Again, when statistics are studied, one asks how this small Pacific nation has so large a proportion of Catholics, especially given that its nearest neighbour, Indonesia, is the most densely populated Islamic nation in the world?  Emphasis is given to the query when it is noted that by 1975, after hundreds of years as a Portuguese colony, East Timor had a Catholic population estimated at about 30% of the total.

As already stated, mostly Dominican missionary priests accompanied the Portuguese traders and soldiers from Goa in the sixteenth century.  Their role does not seem to have been one of aggressive proselytising, but included the care and defence of the locals against the traditional colonial exercise of repression by traders, colonial officials and military.  Obviously, needing official sanction for their presence and work, these missionary priests collaborated with the colonial government, and, because of their own nationality, were thus instrumental in spreading the Lusaphone culture.  This was confirmed after a 1940 Concordat between the Vatican and Portugal, which gave that country’s church responsibility for education in its territories.  Not only did this mean maintaining parish schools, but also, for instance, influenced the work of the Jesuit missionaries in East Timor, introducing Paolo Freire programmes in adult education and social issues.  They also took over the seminary at Dare after 1958.

In line with government, the Diocese of Timor/Dili was suffragan, or subject to, that of Goa, and subject also to Portuguese ecclesiastical authority, but never under the Indonesian church administration.   The church received land grants and tax exemption from the government, even some travel assistance for clerics.  Obviously, official church policies and attitudes favoured safety for as many as possible, especially during times of unrest and violence.  Most missionary clergy and religious had come from southern European countries, Spain, Portugal, Italy or from Macau with retention of their visas at stake.  In later years they generally bowed to the inevitable domination by ABRI, the Indonesian army of occupation, which included many Timorese recruits.  On the other hand, indigenous clergy and members of religious orders, some of them contemporaries of Fretilin leaders, tended to espouse local sympathies, although this was not unanimous.   Even here are apparent the divisions which still plague East Timorese political affairs – notably the support given by conservative clergy for Portuguese influence and to the UDT and APODETI parties, echoing a distrust of ‘Marxist’ or ‘communist’ Fretilin policies.  It was this safety first, traditional support for government, even for integration with Indonesia, which seems to have  influenced official Vatican policy, as well as characterising the policies of some local church leaders.

As for the increased proportion of  Catholics in East Timor after the 1976 declaration that Timor-Leste had become the 27th Province of Indonesia, it appears to have been the result of the imposition of Pancasila, the five-point principle of the Indonesian state.  All citizens were required to nominate as adherents of one of the five specified religious groups -  Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant or Catholic, and only these were legally recognised.  Adherence to local traditional rituals was interpreted  by ABRI as showing support for Fretilin guerrillas.  On the other hand, Catholicism was familiar after the protective  presence  of missionary and indigenous clergy and religious for centuries.  The Timorese had never known forced conversion, so now a huge majority chose Catholicism, many seeing a syncretic link with their animist traditions, whole local communities sometimes becoming Catholic en masse.  In his address when he was sworn in as Prime Minister in July 2006, José Ramos-Horta stressed the country’s important partnership with the Catholic church, claiming:

One effect was that the Catholic Church was the only non-military institution to survive the Indonesian takeover.

The dilemma which was constantly before church administrators, pastors or bishops was therefore due to their pastoral role of service to the people of Timor-Leste and humane sympathies  on the one hand,  and their interpretation of loyalty to both church policy and the government in power.  This became evident in the post-1975 years, when Bishop Joaquim Ribeiro trusted neither the ‘communistic’ Fretilin nor the occupation forces and their officials.  Yet when he tried to protest against the slaughter of Timorese and the destruction of their homes and crops, he was forced to resign and a Timorese Apostolic Administrator appointed.  According to James Dunn,  Monsignor Martinho da Costa Lopes, hampered by the enforced  isolation of Timor, made few public statements yet managed to be  critical of Indonesian policies in his country in correspondence with the United Nations Human Rights Commission and with Australian Catholic Relief, with Pope John Paul II himself as well as with some United States bishops, at times using the term ‘cultural and psychological genocide’  (Dunn: Timor, A People Betrayed, p. 287) .  Yet he too was the subject of  pressure by the Vatican on the Nuncio in Jakarta to secure his resignation.  It was only after that resignation that much of his criticism was successfully aired.

When another Timorese priest was appointed in 1983 to be the successor of Costa Lopes, it was confidently expected that he would be compliant.  Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, the Salesian Rector of the Fatumaca seminary near Baucau, had been educated in Macau, Lisbon and Rome between 1975 and 1981 and had therefore missed the horrors which marked the first years of the Indonesian annexation.  In addition, he had had to adopt Indonesian citizenship in order to return.  At first his appointment as Administrator was not generally approved by priests of the diocese who saw Carlos Belo as conciliatory, as indeed he made every effort to be.  Yet he challenged military and civil officials on behalf of individuals and groups in carefully worded documents.  He was well able also to appreciate the divisions between the Timorese themselves.  Treading this delicately balanced line, he was able to welcome Pope John Paul II for a visit in 1989.

Active in distributing food and clothing to impoverished families, widows and victims of abuse, his home gave shelter to those fleeing from violence, as in 1999, when he was forced to flee for his life. Where many suffered repression and yearned for independence, there were also many politicians, military officers and diplomats who supported integration with Indonesia or a continued Portuguese connection.   The bishop shared the nationality of all of these, but represented a non-partisan Church, quoting its doctrines and documents. 

His 1985 diocesan statement typically acknowledged the Indonesian development of schools, clinics and infrastructure, yet pointed out the duty of the church to protect human rights, specifically the right for people to choose their future.    He used his acceptance speech at the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to urge: ‘Let us sit down around a table and understand each other’.  Two years later in a joint letter to the Indonesian President Habibie, the two bishops, Belo and Nascimento, called for a United Nations settlement by plebiscite, allowing freedom of expression and respect for Timorese culture.  The referendum and its result followed.