Timor-Leste abuse
Timor-Leste is the only Catholic-majority country Pope Francis will visit during his 12-day Asia-Pacific journey.
Around 700,000 people, more than half of Timor-Leste’s total population, are expected to attend an open-air mass that the Pope will hold near the capital Dili later on Tuesday.
The Pope’s visit is much anticipated, but campaigners are urging him to address a recent abuse crisis that has damaged the Church in Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor.
A senior bishop, regarded as an independence hero, has been accused of sexually assaulting young boys in the Southeast Asian country during the 1980s and 1990s.
A Vatican official stated that the church was aware of the case against Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in 2019 and imposed disciplinary penalties in 2020, including limits on Belo’s movements and a prohibition on voluntary contact with children.
In an open letter, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in Oceania stated that there had “still not been redress for the victims” and urged Pope Francis to utilize Church funds to compensate them.
According to his official schedule, the Pope will not meet with victims, but it is unknown whether he would apologise for the scandal or whether Bishop Belo will accompany him in Dili.
Along with demolishing houses and evicting scores of individuals in the vicinity of the mass, the authorities’ actions have drawn harsh criticism from the local populace.
“They even destroyed the things we had inside the house. Since my kids are still attending this local school, we now have to rent close by,” Zerita Correia previously told NEWSHORTS News.
Just outside of the capital, in a marsh area called Tasitolu, are the dwellings. Hundreds of people from rural areas of the nation have relocated there in the last ten years.
Many arrived in the capital in search of employment and erected rudimentary dwellings there. They are squatting, according to the authorities, and don’t have the right to occupy the land.
A government minister told the NEWSHORTS that people living in the area were informed about intentions to evacuate it in September 2023.
Timor-Leste critics have also questioned the choice to spend so much money on the visit, with a new altar costing US$1 million (£762,000).
The UN estimates that approximately 50% of Timor Leste’s population is currently living below the country’s poverty level.
Since Pope John Paul II’s journey to Timor-Leste in 1989, when the nation was still occupied by Indonesia, this is the first papal visit to the region.
Only about 20% of East Timorese population were Catholic in 1975, the year of Indonesia’s invasion of the former Portuguese province. At this point, the percentage is 97%.
The Pope has already visited Indonesia, where 3% of people identify as Catholic, and Papua New Guinea, where about 25% of people live.
Later this week, in Singapore, Pope Francis will conclude his trip to the area.
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