An estimated 600,000 people – a figure nearing half of East Timor’s population – packed a seaside park on Tuesday for Pope Francis’s final Mass, held on the same field where St John Paul II prayed during the nation’s fight for independence from Indonesia.
While other papal Masses have drawn millions of people in more populous countries and there were certainly other nationalities attending Tuesday’s Mass, the crowd in small East Timor was believed to represent the biggest turnout for a papal event ever, in terms of the proportion of the population.
The Tasitolu Peace Park in the capital, Dili, was a sea of yellow and white umbrellas – the colours of the Vatican flag – as Timorese shielded themselves from the afternoon sun while they awaited Francis’s arrival for the afternoon service. They got occasional spritzes of relief from water trucks that plied the field with hoses.
“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 from Baucau at 9m, more than seven hours early.
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 of a century.
Francis was 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 UN Development Programme.
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.
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 had predicted as many as 750,000.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni cited crowd estimates by local organisers that 600,000 people were attending in the Tasitolu park and surrounding areas.
They started queuing before dawn to enter the park, on the coast about five miles (8km) from central 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 pavements.
Temperatures reached 31C (88F), and it 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 80 miles (128km) east of the capital.
The 56-year-old 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 plain clothes Indonesian police clashed with some 20 young men who shouted “Viva a independencia” 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 reportedly taken to hospital after being crushed in the surging crowd. The Pope was unhurt.
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,” Mr 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 as trying to draw attention to the plight of the Timorese people. He went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize with President Ramos-Horta for their efforts to peacefully resolve the Timorese conflict.
But Bishop 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, his historic role has been seemingly erased from any official mention during Francis’s visit, even while ordinary Timorese still revere him as a hero.
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 did not mention Bishop 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 praised East Timor for the progress it has made since independence and is seeking to encourage the country to strengthen its public institutions and look out for the poorest and most vulnerable.
The Pope arrived in the country on Monday, and on Tuesday morning he visited a home for disabled children run by a congregation of religious sisters.
Young girls, including one without arms, presented him with a traditional woven shawl known as a tais as he arrived at the Irmas Alma (Sisters of the Association of Lay Missionaries) school.
As he stroked the hand of a young boy named Silvano in a pushchair, 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,” he said.
