Search queries on my blog sometimes give an indication that something has happened that hasn’t come to my attention. So was it today as well, as a rise in searches for Bishop Wilhelmus Joannes Demarteau was explained today by the news of his passing.
95-year-old Bishop Demarteau hailed from the Diocese of Roermond, but became a priest and bishop of the mission in Indonesia. Ordained a priest for the Congregation of Missionaries of the Holy Family in 1941, Wilhelmus Demarteau left for Indonesia after his first Mass in his hometown, and was appointed as Vicar Apostolic of Banjarmasin, in the south of the Indonesian island of Kalimantan, in 1954, at the age of 36. A few months later, he was consecrated as bishop. As Banjarmasin became a diocese in 1961, Bishop Demarteau became its first bishop, until his retirement in 1983. He remained in his former diocese after his retirement and will be buried there as well. His native Diocese of Roermond will remember his passing in a special memorial at the end of January.
Bishop Demarteau was one of the last living bishops appointed by Pope Pius XII and the second oldest bishop of Dutch decent. Only Bishop Andreas Sol, emeritus of Amboina, also in Indonesia, is older.
A short statement from Bishop Johannes Bluyssen who will mark the 50th anniversary of his consecration to bishop on 27 December. Or won’t mark it, as it turns out. An understandable decision, obviously, but a bit sad all the same. Plans were for the emeritus bishop of ‘s Hertogenbosch to offer a solemn Mass in the cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, whose feast day it’ll also be on the 27th. The bishops age (he’ll turn 86 in April) and health did not allow for much more.
In Caelo et in Terra 