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Ledalero: Exporting indigenized religion, priests

Standing tall: Ledalero college’s Church of St

Duncan Graham (The Jakarta Post)
Flores, East Nusa Tenggara
Mon, August 19, 2019

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Ledalero: Exporting indigenized religion, priests

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tanding tall: Ledalero college’s Church of St. Paul was destroyed in the 1992 earthquake — along with the college’s lecture rooms, admin facilities and accommodation — but it was rebuilt, and its three spires rise to the heavens today.(Photo by Erlinawati Graham)

The country is a large exporter of Indonesian migrant workers (TKI), and at around 9 million strong most TKI are domestic workers and laborers according to the World Bank. Catholic priests also number among them today, thanks to seminaries like Ledalero in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara.

The Bible was brought to Indonesia by thousands of European missionaries across the centuries. While there are restrictions today on how and where foreigners can preach in Indonesia, there are not too many who are keen to come.

By contrast, Indonesia’s Catholic graduates are now taking their version of the word of God to the West.

The top Catholic institute in Indonesia is the Ledalero Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Katolik (STFK Ledalero), a college of Catholic philosophy that is run by the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) — the Society of the Divine Word. The college is located just outside Maumere in East Flores, East Nusa Tenggara.

“We’re now the largest provider of SVD apostles [also called Verbites] to the world,” said counselor Bill Burt, an Australian.

“We have about 300 young men studying. This year’s graduates will be going to Russia, Latvia, South American countries, Norway, Poland and Ukraine and Australia.”

Burt will soon retire to Melbourne; then there will be only two non-Indonesian priests in Sikka regency, including the capital Maumere.

Ledalero’s staff canteen has a wall displaying the portraits of the college’s leaders, past and present. The early rows show bearded sages with stares severe; however the most recent photos are of dark-skinned and clean-shaven men — just like the diners. The church is becoming indigenized, and not just in Indonesia.

“Few young men want to join the church in the secular West, but in Flores, having a son take holy orders is a matter of family pride,” said Burt.

Since its founding in 1875 in the Netherlands by exiled German priests, the SVD had set up missions overseas, including the Dutch East Indies.

It now claims to be the world’s biggest Catholic missionary congregation with more than 6,000 religious members, of which 4,000 are ordained priests. Last year, Father Paulus Budi Kleden, a 54-year-old Flores native, was appointed the order’s superior general in Rome.

The faith Ledalero exports is not the original, imported European variety but Asian, filtered through Indonesian culture. East Flores has a major cult of worshipping Mary. One priest quietly noted: “She’s even more popular than Jesus.”

“The SVD has evolved and is more concerned with educating the poor and human rights issues,” said Burt. “Three years ago, we sponsored a seminar on the killings of real or imagined communists after the 1965 coup [that] brought [former president] Soeharto to power.”

Indonesia’s most famous Jesuit priest and philosopher, Franz Magnis-Suseno, wrote that Ledalero was the first education institution in the nation “courageous enough” to talk publicly and critically about the genocide.

Despite its remote location, Ledalero runs a press that produces theological theses, an international journal and books on the mass killings, a topic mainstream publishers still tremble to touch.

The SVD men are not navel gazers. Some are helping to expose the plight of returning Indonesian migrant workers who have been infected with HIV, which they then pass on to their wives and through them, their children.

New drugs can stop the virus developing into the often fatal condition, AIDS. Originally recruited to spread the Gospel, SVD members have found themselves working to stop the virus spread by ensuring that patients take their medicines.

Next year Ledalero hopes to achieve university status. One problem in upgrading is recruiting native English lecturers, particularly since missionaries will be working overseas where English is the first or second language. The other issue is that its well of money is running dry.

“We used to get most funding from Germany through public contributions. That’s collapsed during the past five years. Scandals involving pederast priests in countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have had an impact,” said Burt.

“Now we’re learning self-sufficiency by developing a farm and businesses to maintain funding.”

Fortunately, Ledalero’s buildings are relatively new. An earthquake in 1992 destroyed everything on the 11-hectare site, so the Church of St. Paul, lecture rooms, administrative facilities and dormitories were all rebuilt.

To stop its graduates from thinking they’re above the masses they’re supposed to serve, the STFK offers a quote by the German Jesuit, Karl Rahner (1904-1984) for contemplation:

“The number-one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim him [Jesus] with their mouths and deny him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.” (ste)

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