DownloadHOLY SEE
Oblate named Apostolic Administrator
On 31 May 2014, Pope Francis
accepted the resignation of Bishop Wilhelmus de Bekker from the pastoral
governance of the Diocese of Paramaribo (Suriname) in conformity with Canon 401
of the Code of Canon Law. The Holy Father named Oblate of Mary Immaculate, Fr. Antonius
(Toon) TE DORSHORST as Apostolic Administrator of that same diocese “at the
disposition of the Holy See.”
Fr te Dorsthorst was born in Holland in 1943 and was ordained a priest in 1970. He arrived in Suriname in his early youth (before his priestly ordination) and has lived there ever since. His main apostolate has been among the indigenous and Maroon people of Suriname’s interior. He speaks Dutch, English and French and is fluent in the local languages of the Sranantongo, Saramaccan and Aucaan peoples.
