Scholastics Fransiskus Pieter Dolle SJ from Indonesia and Isaías Abílio Caldas SJ from Timor-Leste were ordained deacons in Madrid at the Jesuit parish of San Francisco Javier and San Luis Gonzaga in the neighborhood of Ventilla on 8 February. They were ordained along with six companions, five from Spain and one from Portugal, Francisco Mendes Cortês Ferreira SJ, who did his Regency at Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola in Timor-Leste from 2014 to 2017.
Pieter and Isaías are finishing the first cycle of their theological studies at Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid. Pieter entered the novitiate in Semarang, Indonesia in 2008 and studied philosophy in Jakarta. He began his Regency in 2014 helping at Jesuit Refugee Service. He was sent to Salamanca, Spain in 2016 for language studies before he began his theological studies a year later.
Isaías joined the novitiate in 2004 in Singapore and spent six years in Manila, Philippines, during which he did two years of Juniorate and four years of Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University. He went home to Timor-Leste for Regency from 2012 to 2015, at the time when the Region was establishing a Jesuit secondary school, Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola, in Kasait. After completing three years of Regency, Isaías was sent to Oporto, Portugal for master’s studies in Portuguese literature at Universidade do Porto from 2015 to 2017. From there, he proceeded to his theological studies in Madrid.
The main celebrant of the ceremony was Don Carlos Cardinal Osoro Sierra, Archbishop of Madrid. Among the 100 or so concelebrants were the Socius of the Indonesian Provincial, Fr Bambang A Sipayung SJ; the Delegate of the Timor-Leste Regional Superior, Fr Leonardus Dibyawiyata SJ; Portuguese Provincial, Fr José Frazão SJ; and Spanish Provincial, Fr Antonio España SJ. Present in the ceremony, too, was Fr Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves SJ, Prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.
In his homily, the ordaining prelate reminded the ordinands to be servants of Christ who should never disregard their brothers and sisters as Isaiah prophesied in the First Reading of the Mass. The Cardinal continued that the service the future deacons will render should be done with the wisdom that comes from Christ. To do this, he encouraged them to be familiar with Christ who calls them, and, quoting Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, to be “contemplative and holy” because they are servants of men and women of the world in the name of Christ. Finally, by alluding to the Gospel of the day, the Cardinal reminded them that they are called to be salt and light to the world.
To the rest of the congregation, the presiding prelate asked: “Are we, the believers, good news to the men and women of today?” He exhorted them to examine themselves if they are “salt of the Gospel” to the world to eliminate all the “darkness” in their works and in the cultural and political contexts in which they find themselves.
The parish church was fully packed. Among the family and relatives who had come mainly from Spain and Portugal were friends of the ordinands, many of whom were families and young people that these Jesuits have served in their Regency or are serving in their actual apostolates. A handful of Indonesians and East Timorese religious, who are studying in Madrid, did not lose the opportunity to participate in prayer and celebration with Pieter and Isaías and their companions in unison with the pilgrim church and the triumphant one. This celebration continued after the Mass in the interior courts of the Colegio de Padre Piquer.
