austraLasia #1576
Bishop Visits
refugee school and camp
(note: There is a backup of other news, since we have been running the
Dili story almost non-stop now for a week - but it still has 'legs' as
they say in the jargon, because various readers write in with questions
or comments, so it keeps running! Nobody would be keener for
things to get back to normality than the Salesian Family in Dili!
Hopefully sdb.org will be able to run a few photos)
COMORO, 7 June 2006 --At
10:30 this morning, Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva of Dili made a
surprise visit to the refugee school which was just organised
yesterday. In his address to the 500 students and teachers (up 200 from yesterday and still
climbing!),
who
were quickly assembled as soon as the headmaster knew that the bishop
had come, he first expressed the Holy Father, Benedict XVIs, concern
for the Timorese people. (May 31st General Audience). The bishop
congratulated the students and teachers for their desire to do
something good, namely prepare themselves for the future, and praised
their intelligence in having chosen to do the right thing.
He
said he was very sorry and ashamed before the world at what had
happened and was happening: violence, burning and destroying houses,
fostering ethnic tension between east and west. "This is a very bad
thing, and we should not let it develop. We are one people; there is no
east and west. And I say this especially because my father is from the
east and my mother is from the west"!
He
also informed the students and teachers that the Church has condemned
the violence and has made an appeal for unity (Pastoral Letter of 31st
May 2006) and is working hand in hand with
the President and the Foreign Minister to speedily bring about a
solution for a lasting peace.
From
the school, the bishop proceeded to the Don Bosco compound to visit the
15,000 plus refugees (note that this number has also climbed). He was
welcomed by Fr. Antonio T. Pinto, SDB, who
took him around to see the refugees. The bishop consoled and
encouraged the refugees and took time to talk with them. He left just a
few minutes before noon.
(on another note, the first edition of the FOSS
newsletter comes out today - drop a line if you want to receive it)
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