Pope Francis arrives in East Timor, crowd may reach 750,000

[September 09, 2024]  By Joshua McElwee

DILI (Reuters) -Pope Francis arrived on Monday in East Timor, a predominantly Catholic nation in Southeast Asia, for a three-day visit that will include an open-air celebration of Mass the Vatican says may include more than half the population of 1.3 million.

The 87-year-old pontiff is on an ambitious 12-day visit to four countries across Southeast Asia and Oceania, his longest overseas journey yet.

He came to East Timor from Papua New Guinea, where on Sunday he delivered medical supplies to a small town located at the edge of a vast jungle, in one of the most remote areas of the world.

Francis landed in Dili, the Timorese capital, on Monday afternoon. He was met at the airport by President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta and two young women dressed in traditional outfits, who offered him flowers and a tais, a woven ceremonial scarf, which the pontiff briefly put on.

Tens of thousands of people filled entire city blocks around the airport as Francis left in a white, open-top vehicle. Many were using umbrellas decorated in the white and yellow colors of the Vatican flag to protect themselves from direct sun in the 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) heat.

East Timor, a half-island nation north of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, after a brutal, decades-long occupation. Francis is the second pope to visit, following John Paul II, who came in 1989, in a trip that gave the country's independence movement an historic boost.

The country is likely the most Catholic in the world, with the Vatican saying some 96% of Timorese are adherents to the faith.

Organisers are preparing for some 750,000 people to attend a Mass with Francis on Tuesday at the Tasitolu, a wide, dusty coastal area where Indonesian forces were known to bury killed Timorese independence fighters.

Since independence, the country has struggled with rebuilding its infrastructure and economy. In 2014, the World Bank estimated that some 42% of Timorese live in poverty and that some 47% of children are stunted because of malnutrition.

Pope Francis speaks with East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Dili, East Timor, September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

Although Timorese have remained overwhelmingly Catholic, the church in the country has been affected recently by abuse scandals.

In 2022, the Vatican confirmed it had sanctioned Timorese Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo following allegations he sexually abused boys in Timor in the 1990s. Belo, who shared the 1996 Nobel peace prize with Ramos-Horta for their independence efforts, lives in Portugal.

A year earlier, a defrocked American priest, Richard Daschbach, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing girls under his care in Timor.

A leading abuse survivor advocacy group called on Francis to speak openly about the cases during his visit. "The pope must denounce the two men by name," said Anne Barrett Doyle, of the abuse tracking group BishopAccountability.org. "His words could have an enormous positive impact."

The pope's first address in the country will come later Monday, when Francis is due to address the political authorities.

Francis is visiting East Timor until Wednesday as part of a tour that also included a stop in Indonesia. He travels next to Singapore before returning to Rome on Sept. 13.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Lincoln Feast and John Mair)

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