Aloysius Murwito

Aloysius Murwito was born on 20 December 1950 in Sleman, in the Special Region of Yogyakarta on Java. He attended SMP Kanisius, a Catholic junior high school in Sleman, and then the van Lith teacher training school (Sekolah Pendidikan Guru van Lith) in Muntilan, Central Java. He went on to the College of Social Development (Sekolah Tinggi Pengembangan Sosial) in Malang and the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and Theology in Abepura, near Jayapura in Papua. He studied philosophy and theology in Yogyakarta, followed by pastoral fieldwork in Jayapura in the 1970s. He joined the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans.

Murwito was ordained a priest on 7 July 1982 by Jacobus Duivenvoorde, MSC, Archbishop of Merauke. He served in several parishes in Flores and Papua and was later elected Minister Provincial of the Franciscan province of Indonesia.

On 7 June 2002 Pope John Paul II appointed him the second Bishop of Agats, succeeding Alphonsus Augustus Sowada, OSC, an American Crosier missionary whose health problems, including a quadruple heart bypass in 1999, led to his retirement in May 2001. The appointment was announced in Rome on 8 June 2002. Murwito was consecrated on Sunday 15 September 2002 at Yos Sudarso Field in Agats, with Archbishop Duivenvoorde as principal consecrator and Bishop Sowada, Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar of Jayapura and Bishop Fransiskus Xaverius Sudartanta Hadisumarta of Manokwari-Sorong as co-consecrators. His episcopal motto, from Psalm 56, was "In Deo speravi, non timebo" (In God I trust, I shall not be afraid).

As bishop he led the Indonesianisation of the diocese's leadership and made education a central priority. The Diocese of Agats covers Asmat Regency and part of Mappi Regency in South Papua, a region of tidal rivers and swamp forest where many communities can be reached only by boat. On 18 April 2004 he was a co-consecrator of John Philip Saklil as the first Bishop of Timika. He also served as spiritual adviser to the Catholic Professionals and Entrepreneurs association of the Archdiocese of Jakarta and was a member of the Indonesian Bishops' Conference.

As a Franciscan friar, Murwito took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and had no family of his own. He was a Javanese from the Yogyakarta region who devoted almost his entire working life to the Church in eastern Indonesia. In September 2025 the diocese celebrated the 23rd anniversary of his episcopal ordination with a thanksgiving Mass at Agats Cathedral, where clergy spoke of the challenges he had faced and of his unbroken commitment to his mission.

Murwito died on Thursday 12 November 2026 at 21.24 Western Indonesian Time (23.24 Eastern Indonesian Time) at Panti Rapih Hospital in Yogyakarta, aged 75. The news was shared that evening by Johannes Rettob, Regent of Mimika and a Catholic community leader, who asked priests, religious and lay people of the diocese to pray for him. The Indonesian Bishops' Conference communications commission published a notice of his death, and tributes spread quickly on church social media in Papua. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of first reports.

Murwito led the Diocese of Agats from 2002 until his death, almost 24 years, and was its first Indonesian bishop after decades of leadership by American Crosier missionaries. He was remembered as a pastor who accompanied the Asmat people through the many difficulties of life in a remote region, and whose ministry was carried out not only in church but through his presence among communities across a challenging landscape.