DILI, East Timor — The individuals of East Timor gave Pope Francis a rousing welcome Monday as he arrived in East Timor to encourage its restoration from a bloody and traumatic independence battle and rejoice its improvement after twenty years of freedom from Indonesian rule.
Timorese jammed Francis’ motorcade route into city from the airport, waving Vatican and Timorese flags and toting yellow and white umbrellas — the colours of the Holy See — to shade themselves from the scorching noon solar.
“Viva el Papa!” they shouted as he handed by, at one level slowing down in his open-topped automobile to bless a child who was offered to him in the midst of the group.
The occasional Timorese guards alongside the motorcade route had been no match for the throngs of individuals, many donning T-shirts with Francis’ face on them, who slowed the convoy of automobiles and vans to a crawl. The 87-year-old Francis appeared to relish the greeting, smiling broadly from the automobile and waving as he handed by billboard after billboard that includes his picture and phrases of welcome.
Francis arrived in Dili from Papua New Guinea to open the third leg of his journey via Southeast Asia and Oceania. President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, two of East Timor’s most revered independence heroes, greeted Francis on the airport and had been assembly with him privately.
The pope was to handle authorities officers and diplomats later Monday after an official welcome ceremony.
The overwhelmingly Catholic East Timor, one of many world’s poorest international locations, eagerly awaited Francis’ arrival, which got here on the heels of the twenty fifth anniversary of the U.N.-backed referendum that paved the best way for independence from Indonesia.
“Our nice hope is that he could come to consolidate the fraternity, the nationwide unity, peace and improvement for this new nation,” stated Estevão Tei Fernandes, a college professor.
It was a far totally different environment than when the final pope visited. St. John Paul II got here in 1989, when Timor was nonetheless an occupied a part of Indonesia and combating for its freedom. As many as 200,000 individuals had been killed through the 24 years of Indonesian rule.
Francis will confront that legacy, and one other another near house involving Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, the Timorese bishop who, together with Gusmao and Ramos-Horta is considered a hero for his efforts to win independence.
Belo received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 with Ramos-Horta for campaigning for a good and peaceable answer to the battle.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, in its quotation, praised Belo’s braveness in refusing to be intimidated by Indonesian forces. The committee famous that whereas making an attempt to get the United Nations to rearrange a plebiscite for East Timor, he smuggled out two witnesses to a bloody 1991 bloodbath so they may testify to the U.N. human rights fee in Geneva.
In 2022, the Vatican acknowledged that it had secretly sanctioned Belo in 2020 for sexually abusing younger boys. The sanctions included limitations on his actions and train of ministry and prohibited him from having voluntary contact with minors or contact with East Timor itself. The sanctions had been bolstered in 2021.
Regardless of the sanctions, which had been confirmed on the time by the Vatican spokesman and reaffirmed final week forward of Francis’ journey, many individuals in East Timor have stood by Belo, both dismissing, denying or diminishing the victims’ claims. Some even hoped Belo, who lives in Portugal, can be available to welcome Francis.
