East Timorese flock to seaside park for Pope Francis’ Mass at site of John Paul II’s historic visit

Watch live as Pope Francis presides over a Mass in East Timor’s capital Dili with tens of thousands in attendance.

TASITOLU, East Timor (AP) — East Timorese packed a seaside park Tuesday in historic numbers for Pope Francis’ big Mass, held on the same field where St. John Paul II celebrated a liturgy during the nation’s fight for independence from Indonesia.

The Tasitolu park was a sea of yellow and white umbrellas — the colors of the Holy See flag — as Timorese shielded themselves from the afternoon sun awaiting Francis’ arrival. They got occasional spritzes of relief from water trucks that plied the field with water hoses.

“Viva Papa Francisco,” an announcer intoned as Francis arrived to cheers.

Tasitolu is said to have been a site where Indonesian troops disposed of bodies killed during their 24-year rule of East Timor. Now it is known as the “Park of Peace” and features a larger-than-life-sized statue of John Paul to commemorate his 1989 visit, when the Polish pope shamed Indonesia for its human rights abuses and encouraged the overwhelmingly Catholic Timorese faithful.

John Paul’s visit helped draw attention to the plight of the Timorese people and the oppressiveness of Indonesia’s rule, during which as many as 200,000 people were killed over a quarter-century.

Francis was celebrating Mass at the same site Tuesday, following in John Paul’s footsteps to cheer on the nation two decades after it became independent in 2002. East Timor, known also as Timor-Leste, remains one of the poorest countries, with some 42% of its 1.3 million people living below the poverty line, according to the U.N. Development Program.

But the Timorese are deeply faithful – the territory has been overwhelmingly Catholic ever since Portuguese explorers first arrived in the early 1500s and some 97% of the population today is Catholic. They have turned out in droves to welcome the first pope to visit them as an independent nation.

“We are very happy that the pope came to Timor because it gives a blessing to our land and our people,” said Dirce Maria Teresa Freitas, 44, who arrived at the field at 9 a.m. from Baucau, more than seven hours early.

Pope Francis on Tuesday met children with disabilities at the Irmas Alma School in East Timor’s capital Dili. He was given a warm welcome by the nuns and children who presented bouquets of flowers and a scarf.

Government authorities said some 300,000 people had registered through their dioceses to attend the Mass, but President Jose Ramos-Horta said he expected 700,000 and the Vatican predicted as many as 750,000. While people from West Timor and elsewhere were also expected, the predicted numbers would approximate half East Timor’s population of 1.3 million.

They lined up before dawn to enter the Tasitolu park, on the coast about 8 kilometers (nearly 5 miles) from downtown Dili. With hours to go until the service, the roads leading to it were jammed by cars, trucks and buses packed with people; others walked down the middle of the street, ignoring the sidewalks. Temperatures were 31 degrees C (88 degrees F), and felt even hotter with humidity over 50%.

“For us, the pope is a reflection of the Lord Jesus, as a shepherd who wants to see his sheep, so we come to him with all our hearts as our worship,” said Alfonso de Jesus, who also came from Baucau, the country’s second-largest city after Dili, about 128 kilometers east of the capital.

De Jesus, 56, was among the estimated 100,000 people who attended John Paul’s 1989 Mass, which made headlines around the world because of a riot that broke out just as it was ending. John Paul looked on as baton-wielding Indonesian plain-clothed police clashed with some 20 young men who shouted “Viva a independência” and “Viva el Papa!”

According to Associated Press reporting at the time, the men unfurled a banner in front of the altar and hurled chairs at police. One banner read “Fretilin Welcomes You,” a reference to the independence movement that fought Indonesian rule since East Timor was annexed in 1976 after Portugal dismantled its centuries-old colonial empire.

Four women were reported hospitalized with injuries suffered after being crushed in the surging crowd. The pope wasn’t harmed.

Amnesty International later expressed concern that some 40 people had been detained and tortured, though Indonesian authorities at the time denied any arrests or torture.

“The Mass was run very neat and orderly with very tight security,” De Jesus recalled more than three decades later. “But it was crushed by a brief riot at the end of the event.”

Many of the reports at the time quoted Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in trying to draw attention to the plight of the Timorese people. Belo would go onto win the Nobel Peace Prize with Ramos-Horta for their efforts to peacefully resolve the Timorese conflict.

But Belo has since had his reputation discredited, at least outside of East Timor, after the Vatican revealed in 2022 that he had been sanctioned for sexually abusing young boys. Now living in Portugal and blocked by the Vatican from having contact with East Timor, Belo’s historic role has been seemingly erased from any official mention during Francis’ visit.

Sister Maria Josefa, a nun from Cape Verde who has lived in Dili for five years, said Francis was right to speak out generally about “abuse” when he arrived in Dili on Monday, saying his were words of compassion, even if he didn’t mention Belo by name.

“Unfortunately, the church is made of saints and sinners, but the pope left it within the open that God does not allow for such practices,” she said. “We simply need to correct, to understand those who fell and also try to lift those who have endured such torture.”

Francis has cheered East Timor for the progress it has achieved since independence and is seeking to encourage the country to strengthen its public institutions and look out for the poorest and most vulnerable.

Francis arrived in the country Monday and on Tuesday morning visited a home for disabled children run by a congregation of religious sisters. Young girls, including one without arms, presented Francis with a traditional woven shawl known as a tais as he arrived at the Irmas Alma school.

As he stroked the hand of a young boy named Silvano in a stroller, Francis said taking care of children with such health needs “teaches us to care.”

“As he allows himself to be cared for, we must learn to be cared for by God, who loves us,” Francis said.

Francis then met with clergy and religious sisters at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, where he praised the women of the church and said their dignity must always be respected.

“Women are the most important thing in the church, because they take care of the most needy,” he said. “They heal them. They accompany them.”

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AP researcher Randy Herschaft contributed from New York.

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