When Bishop Ximenes Belo announced his resignation as Bishop of Dili in November 2002, citing health problems, the Church in Timor, Rome and Portugal was stunned. No one has heard of serious health issues affecting the Nobel Peace Prize prelate.
This Wednesday’s news from the Dutch newspaper ‘De Groene Amsterdammer’, which talks about suspicions of various abuses of minors by Ximenes Belo in the 80s and 90s, that is, before he was bishop, as superior of the Salesians of Dom Bosco, in Dili, and already in the exercise of the prelature, is understood as the revelation of the true cause of the unusual resignation of D.
