Dili, Sep 9 (EFE).- Pope Francis arrived Monday in East Timor, one of the world’s most Catholic nations, affected in recent years by the abuse of minors allegedly committed by a Nobel Peace Prize-winning bishop considered a hero of the country’s independence.
In recent years, accusations have emerged of cases of rape of minors and other sexual assaults in the 95-percent Catholic nation by Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and former American priest Richard Daschbach in the 1990s.
After meeting with young people at the Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby, the Pope traveled to Dili, where he landed at 2:23pm (05:23 GMT) and was greeted at the airport by President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.
American association BishopAccountability, which reports abuse cases in the church, sent an email to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in his capacity as president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, asking him to “intervene on behalf of the abandoned East Timorese victims” and to ask the Pope to intervene.
“Urge the Pope to be the defender of the victims. Advise him to speak firmly on their behalf during his visit. Help him understand how alone and scared they must feel,” they wrote.
The Vatican announced in 2022 it sanctioned the bishop after the accusations of abuse with some restrictions on movement, contact with minors, and made him go into exile first to Rome and then to Portugal. He is still considered a national hero in part of the country and Ramos-Horta has always expressed support for him.
After resting at the nunciature, Francis was scheduled to go to the presidential palace to again meet the president, who together with Belo was a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
On the agenda of his third stage of the trip after Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, the Pope is scheduled to visit disabled children Tuesday at the Irmas Alma school and meet with bishops and religious devotees in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
The trip will conclude with a mass on the Taci Tolu esplanade, where Saint John Paul II also celebrated in 1989, when East Timor was still a province of Jakarta.
This island shares territory with part of Indonesia, and gained independence after 24 years of war and with the 1999 referendum that sanctioned its separation. It is a very young society of 1.3 million, where the average age is 21. EFE
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