Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo

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Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo (2019)

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo SDB (born February 3, 1948 in Wailakama, Vemasse administrative office , Baucau parish ) is a Roman Catholic bishop from East Timor and former Apostolic Administrator of Dili . For his services to self-determination in East Timor, he and José Ramos-Horta were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.

life and work

Belo in Same (2000)
Belo in handing over control from INTERFET to UNTAET

Belo was born in East Timor in 1948 as the fifth child of the school teacher Domingos Vaz Filipe and Ermelinda Baptista Filipe , his father died two years after the birth of Belo. The family comes from farmers in the region. As a child, Belo tended water buffalo in Kekeli , his ancestral village. Through a scholarship for the poor, he received a school education at the mission schools in Baucau and Ossu and in 1962 was able to enter the seminary in Dare near Dili . From 1968 he studied philosophy in Lisbon , joined the order of the Salesians of Don Bosco and then returned to East Timor as a teacher.

In 1976, after the invasion and annexation of East Timor by Indonesia , Belo left his homeland and first went to Macau . He later began studying theology in Lisbon and Rome . In 1980 Belo was ordained a priest in Rome and went to Portugal . A year later he returned to East Timor, which was still occupied by Indonesia. Riots were contained with massive use of force. As a result, up to 183,000 East Timorese died by the time the UN intervened in 1999.

Belo was installed by the Vatican as Apostolic Administrator of Dili in 1983 to succeed Martinho da Costa Lopes . Belo was ordained bishop on June 19, 1988 (with the titular diocese of Lorium ). He himself accepted Indonesian citizenship, but rejected the occupation and the violent enforcement of power massively and criticized them, like his predecessor, publicly. The Indonesians reacted with open hostility and massive restrictions on his rights, and Belo was the target of several assassinations. In 1989 he attracted international attention with a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Pérez de Cuéllar , in which he suggested a referendum in East Timor on the future of the country. In 1996 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for East Timor. In 2002 East Timor became independent.

Bishop Belo was known to incorporate animistic practices, including the concept of Lulik and ancestral cult, from the traditional Timorese religion into Catholic rites. In the 1990s he held masses on the two most important peaks of East Timor, the sacred mountains Tatamailau and Matebian . A statue of Jesus has stood on Matebian since 1993 and a statue of Mary on Tatamailau since 1997.

Belo resigned from his office as Bishop of Dili in November 2002 due to the stressful situation that arose after East Timor's independence. In addition, he gave health reasons. He was injured in the 1999 riot. Belo withdrew from public life and went to Portugal for a cure. Belo Basílio do Nascimento , who later became Bishop of Baucau, followed as apostolic administrator . Later, voices were raised calling for Belo's candidacy for president (to replace incumbent Xanana Gusmão ). After his recovery, Belo served a missionary in Mozambique .

On August 26, 2016, Belo received the Collane des Ordem de Timor-Leste .

literature

  • Gerorg Evers: Carlos Belo - voice of a forgotten people . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996, ISBN 3-451-26173-1
  • Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners . Patmos, Düsseldorf 2001
  • Carlos Felipe Ximénes Belo , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 17/2000 from April 17, 2000, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Judith Bovensiepen, Frederico Delgado Rosa: Transformations of the sacred in East Timor , accessed December 27, 2017.
  2. ↑ President of East Timor: HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TIMOR-LESTE, TAUR MATAN RUAK, awards the Collar of the “Order of Timor-Leste” to Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo , August 31, 2016 , accessed on February 4, 2018 .
predecessor Office successor
Martinho da Costa Lopes Apostolic Administrator of Dili
1988–2002 		Basílio do Nascimento
personal data
SURNAME Ximenes Belo, Carlos Filipe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ximenes Belo, Carlos Filipe SDB
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Timorese clergyman, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and bishop in East Timor
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Wailakama, Vemasse Administrative Office , Baucau municipality in East Timor