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View all search resultsObscure Philippine order set up orphanage where abuse occurred
Bogor diocese has declared that the order is not legitimate but the Catholic brothers continue to wear their brown robes and collect money.
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T
he Philippines-based Catholic religious order the Blessed Sacrament Missionaries of Charity (BSMC) was largely unknown to the Indonesian public until one of its members, Lukas Lucky Ngalngola, calling himself Brother Angelo and later Geovanny, put the congregation on the map, and for all the wrong reasons.
Angelo allegedly abused orphanage boys under his care, sexually and physically. While the abuse against the boys who lived at the Kencana Bejana Rohani orphanage that Angelo set up in 2015 in Depok, West Java, was reported to the police in September last year, the crime was revealed to the public only very recently after victims and child protection activists spoke out in the media.
Collective efforts coordinated by the state-sponsored Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) are being made to prosecute Angelo after a lack of action taken against him brought state institutions in charge of child protection, including the KPAI, as well as the Catholic Church, into the spotlight. He was arrested by the Depok Police in September 2019 but was released three months later as the police failed to complete the dossiers for the prosecutor’s office to bring the case to court.
The Catholic Church, in this particular case Bogor Diocese, had washed its hands of the case, reiterating to the public that Angelo was not a Catholic brother. The diocese holds a letter dated Sept. 19, 2019 to be the basis of their claim. The letter said the BSMC was not a Catholic order and that Angelo should not wear a robe. But Angelo continues to wear the brown robe of a brother and along with other brothers from the BSMC, set up another orphanage after he walked free in December. He has continued these activities without any hindrance, collecting money from individual Catholic donors while Bogor Diocese has turned a blind eye.
Obscure order
The Jakarta Post investigated the BSMC and has found that it is an obscure Catholic order based in the Philippines. It has yet to receive any official acknowledgement from the Indonesian Catholic Church, although the BSMC has managed to convince several clergymen to recommend them. On Sept. 7, the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI) issued a circular to all bishops informing them about Angelo and the BSMC and to be careful in making decisions regarding anything related to the subjects.
Yet, despite all this, the BSMC brothers including Angelo continue to woo donors and operate under a religious guise. How has this obscure order managed to do this for so long? How does the Indonesian Catholic Church verify whether an order is legitimate or not?
