Ambon: Catholics celebrate five new priests and two deacons
Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Catholics in Ambon,
the Moluccas, better known as a province of the Thousand Islands, are celebrating
the ordination of five new priests and two deacons. The local bishop, Mgr. Petrus
Canisius Mandagi, a Missionary of the Sacred Heart (MSC), presided over the
ceremony, which took place last February 11 in the cathedral, in front of the Christian
community and a crowd of worshipers. For
the Indonesian religious minority vocations are a sign of the vitality of the
local church and a moment of joy for a community that - in the past - has been the
victim of sectarian violence and Muslim-Christian clashes.
Two
of the five new priests belong to the congregation of the Missionaries of the
Sacred Heart: they are Fr. Aleksander
Sarkol and Fr. Salfinus Buarlele. The other three are diocesan
priests: Fr. Yakobus Sorlury Pr, Fr.
Balduinus Inuhan Pr and Fr. Moses
Fatlolon Pr. The two deacons are Yakobus Bedy Pr and Openg Kornelis Pr, both
from the island of Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), a large Catholic majority
area.
Frits
Pangemanan, a Catholic of Ambon, confirmed to AsiaNews that the ordination was attended by "thousands of
Catholics," from the diocese, along with several government officials who attended
the mass.
Fr. Salfinus
Buarlele leaves for Australia
shortly, as a missionary in the parish of Kippax, Canberra. The
others, however, will remain in the Diocese of Ambon, whose area includes the
provinces of Central and North Maluku, for a
total of 43 parishes. Catholics
there number at least 130 thousand, in terms of vocations, there are 55
diocesan priests and 35 priests belonging to the Missionaries of the Sacred
Heart (MSC). To
date, the minor seminary is home to 300 men, with 111 students in the major seminary.
In
the past the Moluccas witnessed harsh
sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims, leaving a high number of
dead and wounded. The
arrival in 1999 in
the area of thousands of Muslim settlers, coming from other parts of Indonesia,
triggered the conflict, which continued until 2002 causing at least 9 thousand
victims in repeated accidents. The
signing of a peace treaty between the two sides in February 2002 - the Malino
Peace Treaty, signed in South Sulawesi - put
an end to the conflict, but tensions remain.
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