Pope Francis received a rapturous welcome from the tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor, one of the world’s most Catholic countries, where almost half the population turned out for an open-air Mass on Tuesday.
Local authorities estimate that a crowd of 600,000 gathered for the pope’s Mass, the Vatican told reporters.
At the conclusion of the Mass, the pope addressed the crowd in Spanish with a priest translating into Timorese.
Francis drew laughs and cheers when he referenced crocodiles: there are large numbers of crocodiles in the sea around East Timor, and traditional belief holds that reptiles represent people’s ancestors.
A regional bastion of Catholicism Pope Francis’ 12-day visit to Asia includes Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore – underscoring a significant shift inside the Catholic Church as it pivots to Asia.
He is the second pope to visit East Timor, after Pope John Paul II in 1989, but it’s the first papal visit for the country since it gained independence in 2002.
Four hundred years of ensuing Portuguese colonial rule led to the widespread spread of Catholicism in East Timor and other cultural differences from Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Belo has never been officially charged in East Timor and has never spoken publicly about the accusations.
Since Pope Francis became the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics in 2013, multiple reports detailing decades of sexual abuse, systemic failures and cover-ups across multiple countries have been released.
An Australian-led international peacekeeping mission ultimately intervened and East Timor officially won independence in 2002.
Nearly half of the populace of East Timor, a small country in Southeast Asia and one of the most Catholic nations in the world, greeted Pope Francis with jubilation on Tuesday during an outdoor Mass.
The visit by the 87-year-old leader is the penultimate leg of a journey that takes him through the South Pacific and Asia. The Vatican informed reporters that 600,000 people attended the pope’s Mass, according to estimates from local authorities.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the streets of Dili, the capital, were crowded with joyful people wishing to see the pope. These people ranged in age from elderly worshippers to babies in strollers.
Images of the scene showed a sea of people trying to protect themselves from the sun while holding umbrellas in the Vatican’s colors of yellow and white. At one point, a man was seen hosing down the throng with water to keep them cool.
In the park by the sea, where the mass was held, some attendees had been waiting since four in the morning. m. – over 12 hours prior to the start of the event.
One of them, 25-year-old Estefania Clotaria-Monterio Gutierrez Ornai, was eager to get a seat in the front row.
“I hope that by coming here, he can inspire us to treat each other with more respect and give us hope that one of us might become pope like him someday,” she expressed to CNN.
People with physical disabilities gathered to greet the pope, who was greeted with chants of “Viva Papa Francesco,” as he arrived at the park. A group entertained him with a traditional cultural dance. In the local dialects, prayers were also said during the Mass.
The pope spoke to the assembly in Spanish after the Mass, with a priest providing Timorese translation.
When Francis mentioned crocodiles, there was a round of applause and laughter. Reptiles are thought to symbolize people’s ancestors, and there are a lot of them in the sea surrounding East Timor.
The pope warned them, “Be careful.”. Crocodiles are reportedly making their way to some beaches. crocodiles that come swimming and bite us more forcefully than we can manage. Pay attention to those crocodiles who seek to alter your history and culture. Additionally, avoid those crocodiles at all costs because they frequently bite. “.
He also complimented East Timor for having a large population of children, calling it a “great gift,” during his homily. “.
Francis has previously spoken about birthrates while on this tour; in Indonesia, he commended the people for their large families and compared them to low birthrates in other regions of the world.
The Timorese singer Maria Vitória da Costa Borges, also known as “Marvi,” took the stage after the Mass. She was the former winner of Portugal’s version of “The Voice,” where she performed with Bepi, another Timorese vocalist.
Francis talks about molestation.
However, since recent revelations of abuse involving prominent East Timor clergy have surfaced, the issue of clerical sexual abuse also looms large over this leg of the pope’s visit to the region.
In order to “guarantee a healthy and peaceful childhood for all young people,” the pope urged the nation’s political authorities to address “every kind of abuse” during his speech. “.
One of the newest nations in the world, East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, has strong ties to the Catholic Church, which played a significant role in its turbulent and violent struggle for independence from Indonesia.
With 97 percent of its population identifying as Catholic—the highest percentage outside of the Vatican—the nation of just 11.3 million people is the second-most Catholic in the world.
For Francis’ first visit, the East Timor government provided $12 million, which has been criticized as an excessive expense considering that the nation is still among the poorest in Asia and has a small economy.
A further question raised by the pontiff’s visit is whether Francis, like in other countries, will personally address the problem of sexual abuse in the church during his stay in East Timor.
After Carlos Ximenes Belo, an East Timor bishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was accused of sexually abusing boys decades earlier, the Vatican admitted two years ago that it had secretly disciplined him.
Francis has met abuse victims while traveling overseas in the past. Some analysts have stated that if Pope Francis speaks about the abuse while in East Timor, even though it is not part of the official itinerary, it will send a strong message to survivors and those who have not come forward, both in the nation and in the surrounding area.
A stronghold of Catholicism in the area.
Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Indonesia, and East Timor are all stops on Pope Francis’ 12-day tour around Asia, which highlights the Catholic Church’s dramatic shift toward Asia.
Although it is the first papal visit to the nation since its independence in 2002, he is the second pope to visit East Timor, following Pope John Paul II in 1989. Less than a week has passed since the nation commemorated the 25th anniversary of its vote to leave Indonesia.
Situated halfway across the island of Timor, between northwest Australia and Indonesia, the nation was first settled by the Portuguese in the 17th century as a sandalwood trading hub.
The subsequent four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule brought with it other cultural distinctions from Indonesia, a country with a majority of Muslims, as well as the widespread spread of Catholicism in East Timor.
After decades of conflict, East Timor’s economy is still largely dependent on its oil and gas reserves, and the country still faces extreme poverty.
Theologian Christina Kheng, who teaches at the East Asian Pastoral Institute, said to CNN that the nation is still in the process of establishing unity after the war and building a national identity. “.
Like other nations in the area, East Timor is caught in the middle of China’s and the US’s struggle for dominance in Asia, with Australia, a US ally, leading the support effort.
Bishop Belo and claims of sexual abuse.
Bishop Belo, the former leader of the Catholic Church in East Timor, was a prominent pro-democracy figure during the Indonesian occupation. He and President Jose Ramos-Horta were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for their efforts to end the conflict peacefully.
Following claims from two men that the bishop had sexually assaulted them as teenagers and had paid them money to keep quiet, the Vatican acknowledged in 2022 that it had approved Belo two years earlier.
Belo, who is believed to be based in Portugal, was subject to travel restrictions, according to the Vatican, which also forbade “voluntary contact with minors, of interviews and contacts with Timor Leste.”. “.
Despite the fact that Belo has been accused of crimes since 1980, the Vatican claims that it only got involved in the matter in 2019.
The Vatican has been questioned by CNN regarding whether the pope’s visit will touch on Bishop Belo’s case.
The story was first reported by the Dutch daily De Groene Amsterdammer, which also claimed that after conducting an inquiry, it was discovered that Belo had allegedly abused other boys as early as the 1980s.
Neither has Belo addressed the charges in public or received formal charges in East Timor.
Due to the church’s strong ties to the independence movement and the way the government has treated the few people who have been found guilty, many abuse victims in East Timor have been reluctant to come forward.
Numerous reports exposing decades of sexual abuse, systemic shortcomings, and cover-ups in numerous nations have surfaced since Pope Francis took office in 2013 and assumed leadership over the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
While he faced criticism for some of his actions—defending a Chilean bishop who was accused of covering up a sex scandal in 2018, for example—he has since taken a strong stand on the issues and implemented reforms, such as measures to hold lay leaders of associations that have been approved by the Vatican accountable for cover-ups of sexual abuse.
The church and the struggle for independence in East Timor.
After Portugal’s decision to democratize and give up its colonies the year before, East Timor was declared the 27th province of Indonesia and annexed by the country in 1976 amid a civil war.
In the course of Indonesia’s occupying forces’ brutal attempt to impose control, more than 200,000 people—roughly a quarter of the population—died in massacres, fighting, or starvation between 1975 and 1999.
In 1991, Indonesian troops massacred young independence supporters at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, the capital of East Timor. The international community denounced Indonesia for this crackdown. A renewed resistance to Indonesian rule was further sparked by the arrest and imprisonment of Timorese guerilla leader and current prime minister Xanana Gusmao the following year.
East Timor’s independence was put to a vote in 1999 with over 78 percent of the vote, thanks to a UN-sponsored referendum that was made possible by Indonesian President Suharto’s fall from office in 1998 and the subsequent change in Indonesian policy toward East Timor.
Pro-Jakarta militias supported by the Indonesian military launched a killing and looting spree in the capital shortly after the vote, attacking churches, picketing priests and people fleeing as they pursued proponents of independence.
A significant portion of East Timor’s infrastructure was devastated during the violence, forcing about 200,000 people to escape their homes. In the end, an international peacekeeping force headed by Australia intervened, and East Timor formally gained independence in 2002.
The Catholic Church paid a bloody price for its actions during the Indonesian occupation by organizing people against attacks and advocating for an independence vote.
