Pope Francis has touched down in Timor-Leste – the one Catholic-majority nation he’ll go to on his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour.
Round 700,000 individuals – greater than half of Timor-Leste’s total inhabitants – are anticipated to attend an open-air mass that the Pope will rejoice close to the capital Dili afterward Tuesday.
Enthusiasm for the pontiff’s go to is large, however the Pope is being urged by campaigners to handle a latest abuse scandal that tarnished the Church in Timor-Leste, previously referred to as East Timor.
A outstanding bishop, hailed as an independence hero, is accused of sexually abusing younger boys within the Southeast Asian nation in the course of the 80s and 90s.
A Vatican spokesman mentioned the church had been conscious of the case towards Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, together with restrictions on Belo’s actions and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.
In an open letter, the Survivors Community of these Abused by Monks in Oceania mentioned there had “nonetheless not been redress for the victims” and referred to as on Pope Francis to make use of Church cash to pay compensation to them.
In response to his official schedule, the Pope won’t meet with victims, however it’s unclear whether or not he’ll apologise for the scandal and even whether or not Bishop Belo will seem alongside him in Dili.
Authorities have additionally demolished homes and evicted dozens of individuals within the space the place the mass might be held, in a transfer which has attracted sturdy criticism from native residents.
“They even demolished our belongings inside the home. Now we’ve to lease close by as a result of my youngsters are nonetheless at school on this space,” Zerita Correia beforehand advised BBC Information.
The houses are situated in Tasitolu, a wetland space simply exterior the capital. Over the previous decade, a whole lot of individuals moved there from rural components of the nation.
Many got here in search of work within the capital and constructed primary houses within the space. The federal government says they’re squatting and haven’t any proper to reside on the land.
Chatting with the BBC, a authorities minister mentioned that residents had been made conscious of plans to clear the world in September 2023.
Critics in Timor-Leste have additionally questioned the choice to spend such massive quantities of cash on the go to – together with US$1m (£762,000) on a model new altar.
In response to the UN, almost half of the inhabitants of Timor Leste at the moment lives under the nationwide poverty line.
That is the primary papal journey to Timor-Leste since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, when the nation was nonetheless underneath Indonesian occupation.
When Indonesia invaded the previous Portuguese colony in 1975, solely round 20% of East Timorese individuals had been Catholic. That determine now stands at 97%.
The Pope was beforehand in Papua New Guinea, the place round 1 / 4 of its inhabitants describe themselves as Catholic and Indonesia, the place that determine is 3%.
Pope Francis will end his tour within the area in Singapore later this week.
Further reporting by Amito Araújo in Dili