(ANS – Rome) – After the resignation of Fr Andre Delimarta, Delegate for Indonesia from December 2013 until March 2015, and after due consultation, and the proposal of the Superior of the ITM Vice-province, the Rector Major appointed as Fr Delimarta’s successor Fr Lino de Assis Belo for the triennium 2015-2018. The new Delegate assumed the post at the beginning of April 2015 in Jakarta in the presence of the new ITM Superior Fr Virgilio Da Silva.

By Fr Václav Klement,

Councillor for the East Asia-Oceania Region

Lino De Assis Belo was born in Baucau, Timor Leste, on 28 September 1967 and made his perpetual profession on 7 September 1997. He was ordained in 1999, after completing his theology studies in Cremisan (MOR).

After returning to the vice-province in 1999 he spent six years in Sunter, Jakarta in the Post-Novitiate community. Since 2009 he was Rector in the new Salesian community in Blitar, Surabaya (Eastern Java). Fot the past two years, he served as headmaster of the STMK (secondary technical school) in Blitar. Fr Lino has been a member of the Indonesia Delegation council since 2013.

The young and promising Delegation of Indonesia was canonically erected by Fr Pascual Chávez on 20 January 2010 – 25 years after the opening by Fr José Carbonell of the first Salesian community in this, the largest Muslim country in the world. At present there are four canonically erected Salesian communities and four other houses in Indonesia.

There are about 60 Indonesian Salesian priests and brothers, most of them still in initial formation both in Indonesia and abroad. The Salesians of Don Bosco are present in 5 of the 29 dioceses. Moreover, the Salesian Family is slowly growing with some 30 Salesian Cooperators, 5 FMA sisters and hundreds of Don Bosco past pupils from our vocation training centres.

Published 9/04/2015