Subject: CNS: Priests, nuns discovered alive
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 10:57:06 -040020 Sep 1999
Peacekeepers arrive in East Timor; priests, nuns discovered alive By Stephen Steele
NEW YORK (CNS) -- When the first ship of U.N. peacekeeping troops arrived in Dili, East
Timor, at 4:15 a.m., it wakened nuns and refugees residing at a Salesian convent.
''It's earlier than we normally get up, but everybody in the house woke up smiling. Our
lives have been saved,'' said Salesian Sister Marlene Bautista, the only U.S. nun who
remained in Timor throughout several weeks of anarchy and violence.
''I feel safe and I feel confident. Now there are people here who can protect us, and
we feel confident that they will protect us,'' she said.
The first batch of international troops landed at dawn Sept 20. The peacekeeping force,
led by Australia, will eventually number about 7,500 troops from more than 20 nations. The
force was created with a U.N. mandate to use ''all necessary means'' to assist
distribution of humanitarian aid and to end the killing that began after 78 percent of
voters in East Timor favored independence from Indonesia.
As the troops moved in, new details emerged on the number of casualties suffered among
the clergy and church workers. Father Francisco Barreto, the head of Caritas East Timor,
reported dead Sept. 9, is alive and residing in the hills surrounding Dili, said Sister
Bautista. The announcement reduces the number of confirmed killings of clergy to four.
Sister Bautista said Mother Matilde, the 80-year-old mother superior of the Canossian
Daughters of Charity, also is alive.
''She visited here yesterday, which made us all very happy because we heard that she
was killed,'' Sister Bautista told Catholic News Service.
Mother Matilde, who worked for Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, told the Salesian
nuns that she was residing alone in a portion of Bishop Belo's house that was not
destroyed when militias attacked the residence in early September.
''She said she's `standing guard,''' Sister Bautista said.
Bishop Belo, apostolic administrator of Dili, said in Portugal Sept. 19 he would return
to Dili ''when the U.N. force is in all towns and cities (of East Timor) and when Dili is
calm.'' He celebrated Mass that day in Fatima, the site of church-recognized Marian
apparitions to three children in 1917.
Bishop Belo was evacuated to Australia in early September following a militia attack on
his residence.
The bishop met Sept. 13 with Pope John Paul II at the papal summer residence in Castel
Gandolfo to discuss the situation in East Timor. Priests and dozens of pastoral workers
were killed in what Vatican officials described as deliberate attacks against the Catholic
Church.
Of the 10 priests reported missing, six priests, including Father Barreto, were
believed to be residing in the hills outside Dili. Father Francisco Tavares dos Reis was
said to be alive, while a Father Francisco Soares was believed dead, said a church
official.
Bishop Basilio do Nascimento, apostolic administrator of Baukau, East Timor, was also
in hiding in the mountains surrounding Baukau, said Father Reinaldo Cardoso of Providence,
R.I., a priest from the Azores who served in East Timor prior to the 1975 Indonesian
invasion.
Many of the refugees at the Salesian convent wept during a Sept. 19 Mass, which was the
first Mass held at the convent in more than two weeks, said Sister Bautista. The refugees
had been trapped in the convent by the violence that broke out in the wake of the Aug. 30
referendum.
''When you think about it there is a lot to cry about. But the priest told us that as
Christians there's also a lot to be joyful for. All the evil and bad in our society for
the past 24 years has been burned clean, and now we can start rebuilding something pure,
just and good,'' Sister Bautista said.
Meanwhile, a ship carrying 1,200 tons of rice provided by Catholic Relief Services, the
U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency, arrived on Timor island, bound
primarily for the more the 60,000 refugees in the Atambua Diocese.
Vennera Pancho, CRS logistics manager, told UCA News, an Asian church news agency based
in Thailand, that about 115 tons of the rice would be given to refugees sheltered in the
Kupang Archdiocese.
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