CG-8 Southeast Asia Curt Gabrielson, a science teacher and an Institute Fellow, is observing the re- ICWA establishment of education in East Timor. The Church in East Timor LETTERS By Curt Gabrielson AUGUST 1, 2001 Since 1925 the Institute of DILI, East Timor — When my partner Pamela and I first visited East Timor in Current World Affairs (the Crane- 1997, we went to a mass given by Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo in down- Rogers Foundation) has provided town Dili. The Bishop had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, just months before. long-term fellowships to enable After mass, we joined the end of a long line of people waiting to meet the Bishop. outstanding young professionals Halfway up the line, I realized with some trepidation that the people were not to live outside the United States just greeting the bishop and shaking his hand. They were kissing his ring. I weighed and write about international the options and decided I would follow local custom and kiss it as well. areas and issues. An exempt operating foundation endowed by When we finally arrived, I took his hand and leaned down to kiss the ring. the late Charles R. Crane, the Strangely enough, he pulled it away at the last second. I wasn’t sure what to do Institute is also supported by next, but we had a short conversation — thanks, keep up the good work — and contributions from like-minded Pamela and I left. individuals and foundations. A few weeks ago, at the opening of the new language institute at the Univer- sity of East Timor, I saw Bishop Belo give a rousing speech of support and encour- agement. When the ceremony was over, the Bishop was ushered out by the rector TRUSTEES of the university, the head of education in East Timor and the director of the lan- Joseph Battat guage institute. They walked with him to his waiting car and he stretched his Mary Lynne Bird hand out to them. Once again I was taken by surprise: instead of shaking it, they Steven Butler each leaned down and kissed his ring. William F. Foote Kitty Hempstone I know a 60-year-old radical nun from Brazil who recently visited East Timor Pramila Jayapal Peter Bird Martin Ann Mische Dasa Obereigner Paul A. Rahe Carol Rose Chandler Rosenberger John Spencer Edmund Sutton Dirk J. Vandewalle HONORARY TRUSTEES David Elliot David Hapgood Pat M. Holt Edwin S. Munger Richard H. Nolte Albert Ravenholt Phillips Talbot Institute of Current World Affairs The Crane-Rogers Foundation Four West Wheelock Street Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A. The cathedral in downtown Dili. This architectural monstrosity looks like a Maltese cross when viewed from above and was built with unwanted support from Indonesia. to carry out training in community-based education, literacy and grassroots organiz- ing. She passed up an opportunity to meet the world-famous Bishop Belo, allowing that she hadn’t kissed any rings for de- cades, and was not missing the experience. Ring kissing (not only bishops’, but also priests’) is one of the many indications that the Catholic Church in East Timor is extremely conservative. Some would say it still lives in the days of Colonial Portu- gal. At the same time, the Church in East Timor was an absolutely crucial player in the resistance to the Indonesian occupa- tion for 24 years, and continues to play an enormous role both in people’s everyday lives and in the political economy of East Timor. I met a man who told me tales from recent East Timorese history, as so many East Timorese are anxious to do. When he got to the part about how Indonesia had Salesian nuns playing basketball at a retreat in Baukau. It is rare to accused East Timor of being communist, see a nun out of habit here, even in unbearable heat. The white color is he said, a bizarre impracticality in this land of dust and mud. “But they were wrong. East Timor has never been dressed up in their finest, and a large feast was in communist. We are one hundred percent Catholic.” progress. Then someone spied a few ships on the hori- zon. Soon the ships drew near, and the crowd went to He was not far off: around 90 percent of East Timorese the ocean side to watch them come in. A man dressed in claim Catholicism. (It remains unknown how many claim a long black robe with a cross on his chest was rowed communism, though I could introduce him to several from a ship to the shore. Catholic communists I have met.) In a bitter irony, the Indonesian occupation provided the greatest impetus to- Upon alighting in the sand, he proclaimed that he ward conversion. Under the Indonesian moral law, one had come from a great land across the ocean to bring news must claim a religion, and animism is not among the of the King of Heaven, and to save their souls. The feast- choices. Since few East Timorese were drawn to share ers were quick to reply: They had no use for the man’s the Muslim beliefs of their oppressors, the familiar Catho- “king of heaven,” they were currently doing all right and lic faith was by far the most popular option. The result he better return to his boat and go back whence he came. must be an all-time record for conversion: though the The man in black then asked if his men could be permit- Church has been in East Timor for at least 300 years, as ted to fill their water jugs and they would be off. The recently as 25 years ago Catholics amounted to only 10% East Timorese obliged, and went back to their festivities. of East Timor’s population.1 While drawing water, the men from the boat dropped The first priest to visit East Timor was likely from an anchor into the well. They strung its chain back to the another Southeast Asian mission. Goa, India, was made beach, rowed back and secured the chain to their ship. an official Metropolitan See of the Roman Catholic With a vehement prayer from the deck, the ships started Church in 1558, and from that time on the Church worked away. hard at proselytizing this hemisphere. Priests were re- ceived better in some places than others, and the legend Soon the partying East Timorese noticed something of the first priest’s landing on East Timor rings quite true. peculiar — their land was moving! They rushed to the beach and saw that indeed, the chain had tightened and The story goes like this: There was an enormous party the boats were dragging the island back to Europe. All going on among the peoples of East Timor. All the kings their knives and swords were useless on the chain, their and chiefs were dancing and singing; everyone was gods unresponding, their begging in vain. Eventually 1 Various small protestant churches exist in East Timor, and proselytizing work is being done by international protestant develop- ment/missionary organizations, but the Catholic faith is so deeply seated in the culture of East Timor that I don’t give the protestants much chance for success. 2 CG-8 they relented, welcomed the priest back to their island Salazar regime in Portugal, and saw to it that their fol- and invited him to teach them about the King of Heaven. lowers did so as well. Father Lopes spent several years in Portugal as representative of East Timor on the Portu- After this grand and mythical start, the Catholic guese National Assembly, promoting East Timor as a Church found limited converts in East Timor. Success was colony with great economic potential, if only it could be greater, however, than on the nearby islands of Dutch- developed. held Indonesia where the hold of Islam was tight. As the Portuguese gradually solidified their rule of the half-is- In the years leading up to the Indonesian invasion of land of East Timor, the Church took an integral part in 1975, there were only around 30 priests and 30 nuns re- the colonizing process, and soon spread, though thinly, siding in East Timor, half of whom were East Timorese. to all corners. While the population of Catholics was still quite small, locals as a whole respected them, and priests were sought In the early 1920’s, Portugal’s government shifted to as mediators between the political parties that arose af- the hands of the fascists. Under Dictator Antonio de ter the fall of Salazar in 1974. Unfortunately, the media- Oliveira Salazar, the Church was essentially an arm of tion was far from unbiased. Father Lopes was not fond the government. In East Timor, a “native” could become of Fretilin — the most popular party to this day — be- an assimilado by speaking Portuguese, finishing school, cause there were communists among its central-commit- paying taxes, wearing European clothes and being bap- tee members. Bishop Ribeiro actually published a pasto- tized Catholic. Only assimilados could hold government ral letter in 1975 forbidding Catholics to vote for jobs. The Church was an institution for the educated and communists or socialists. There is also some suspicion elite: the commoner had little reason to join, and most that he was in communication with intelligence forces East Timorese continued to follow their many animist from Indonesia. beliefs. Nevertheless, Indonesia’s brutal invasion of East In an effort to raise conversion rates, some East Timor was a shock to Bishop Ribeiro and the entire Timorese Catholics were selected and trained to be priests Church in East Timor.