Johann Evangelist Hafner

• This article describes the way of Conrado Balweg from the Tingguian-tribe in the Cordillera mountains/Philippines, who was educated in Catholic seminaries, entered a missionary congregation, was ordained priest and joined the communist insurgency New People’s Army. There he quickly attained the rank of a political officer and military commander. Balweg held teachings on Marxism in remote villages, he organized several ambushes on government troops and conducted people’s courts against traitors. Over time he developed a special indigenous Maoism and broke away from the party-line and, which was the reason why he was killed by the NPA in 1999. In a contextualized biographical portrait we track the question: How did Maoist thought become part of Balweg’s conviction? As a hypothesis we assumed, that Maoist thought was integrated in Catholic tenets (e.g. interpreting God’s will as the will of the masses). After a close analysis of intellectual backgrounds and political events it turned out, that Maoist ideology superseded religious motivesThis article describes the way of Conrado Balweg from the Tingguian-tribe in the Cordillera mountains/Philippines, who was educated in Catholic seminaries, entered a missionary congregation, was ordained priest and joined the communist insurgency New People’s Army. There he quickly attained the rank of a political officer and military commander. Balweg held teachings on Marxism in remote villages, he organized several ambushes on government troops and conducted people’s courts against traitors. Over time he developed a special indigenous Maoism and broke away from the party-line and, which was the reason why he was killed by the NPA in 1999. In a contextualized biographical portrait we track the question: How did Maoist thought become part of Balweg’s conviction? As a hypothesis we assumed, that Maoist thought was integrated in Catholic tenets (e.g. interpreting God’s will as the will of the masses). After a close analysis of intellectual backgrounds and political events it turned out, that Maoist ideology superseded religious motives instead. This is crucial to understand if violence was justified in the name of God or in the name of the people.…