Uamori Tula, Timor Leste, 7 October 2022 -- It was a great joy for the people of Uaimori Tula. What they have been waiting and looking for for so many years, finally, they have received it. Uaimori Tula is well known as a setting that accommodated hundreds of our guerrilla fighters during the resistance period. However, after independence, this historical place seemed to have been forgotten. Yet, after a long time of waiting, the people living in Uaimori Tula, little by little, saw the dawn of a brighter light sparkling on their spiritual lives through the person of Fr. Locatelli, a great Salesian missionary. Fr. Locatelli is working tirelessly for those people who are living far away, those who are on the periphery. Through the help of so many good people, benefactors, and mostly his beloved spiritual sons and daughters, the past pupils of Don Bosco, he could help them and prepare them for a better future.
On the first day of October, Fr Locatelli was there in Uaimori Tula to witness the arrival of so many people from different places and ranks of life, from the government and the Church: His Eminence Cardinal Virgílio do Carmo da Silva, SDB, Archbishop Marco Sprizzi, Vatican representative, TLS Provincial, Fr. Anacleto Pires, SDB, some diocesan and Salesian priests, distinguished guests or their representatives, government members, and the Portugal ambassador, Past Pupils of Don Bosco, and the people of Uaimori Tula. Cardinal Virgílio inaugurated and blessed the church dedicated to Saint Callistus Caravario, a cleric who joined the first missionary expedition way back in 1927. Caravario stayed for two years.
Cardinal Virgílio celebrated the new church's solemn Mass dedicated to Saint Callistus Caravario. Before the offering, His Eminence blessed the altar with holy oil and incensed the entire church. Before the end of the Mass, the people of Uaimori Tula through their community leaders thanked the Cardinal, distinguished guests, the Salesian Congregation in the person of Fr Anacleto Pires, SDB, TLS Provincial, and Fr Eligio Locatelli, SDB, and in a special mention, the Past Pupils of Don Bosco throughout the country and abroad. After the Mass, there was a great lunch offered to everyone by the people of Uaimori Tula.
