Child abuse scandals overshadow Pope's visit to East Timor

When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to visit independent East Timor, he will be confronted with a clergy plagued by child abuse scandals that have been largely ignored by the deeply Catholic country's freedom heroes.

The cases include Nobel Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who helped Asia's youngest country liberate itself from Indonesian occupation but was secretly punished by the Vatican on allegations that he had sexually abused young children for decades.

There are calls for the 87-year-old pope to speak out on the issue of child abuse when he lands in the former Portuguese colony on Monday (September 9, 2024) as part of his Asia-Pacific tour.

“We ask Your Holiness to encourage the leaders and people of Timor-Leste to take more effective measures to prevent sexual abuse,” the Timor-Leste NGO Forum, a civil society coalition, wrote in a letter to the Pope on Wednesday (September 4, 2024).

BishopAccountability.org, a documentation center on abuse in the Catholic Church, also called on the head of the Vatican's commission on sexual abuse, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, to “urge” the pope to “stand up for victims” during his visit.

Majority Catholic East Timor is one of many countries around the world suffering from the scourge of child abuse by clergy, which has long been carried out in secret.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II accepted the sudden resignation of Bishop Belo, then head of the Church of East Timor, who had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.

The Vatican said the reason was health-related, but did not provide any further explanation.

He was then allowed to be sent as a missionary to Mozambique, where he worked with children before moving on to Portugal.

The Vatican secretly imposed sanctions on the bishop in 2020 after he was accused of sexually abusing underage boys over a period of twenty years until 2002.

Bishop Belo was forbidden from having any contact with children or with East Timor, a condition he allegedly formally accepted.

It was only when the Dutch magazine “De Groene Amsterdammer” reported on the restrictions in 2022, citing the testimony of a victim who said she had been raped by Bishop Belo, that the Vatican went public.

The author of the Dutch magazine's report says that the allegations against Bishop Belo were already known in 2002.

The Pope later said that the decision to send Bishop Belo into retirement rather than face the consequences was made when opinions changed.

Broad support

The bishop received the Nobel Prize for his commitment to human rights during the Indonesian occupation, which lasted more than two decades.

He is revered in his homeland for sheltering young protesters and saving their lives, which has helped him maintain strong support among the country's 1.3 million people, 98 percent of whom are Catholic.

“We feel like we have lost him. We miss him,” said Maria Dadi, president of the National Youth Council of East Timor, AFP.

“After all, he really contributed to Timor-Leste’s struggle.”

In another case, dismissed American priest Richard Daschbach was found guilty in 2021 of abusing orphaned, disadvantaged girls.

He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but found support even at the highest levels of Timorese society.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao caused controversy last year when he visited Daschbach to celebrate his birthday and eat cake with the convicted paedophile, and also attended his trial.

Many in the country are in favor of Bishop Belo returning for the Pope's visit.

“We are very sad that Bishop Belo is no longer here,” said 58-year-old academic Francisco Amaral da Silva. “The government and the Catholic Church should invite him.”

The office of the president of East Timor did not respond to a request for comment. President Jose Ramos-Horta said Bishop Belo's punishment should be carried out by the Vatican.

Limited value

During his stay in the capital Dili, the Pope will meet Catholic believers, children and Jesuits and preside over a large mass.

But it remains unclear whether he will raise cases that have shocked observers in one of the world's poorest countries.

A meeting with victims is not scheduled in the Pope's schedule and the Vatican has not made any comment before his departure from Rome. However, he could improvise the topic in one of his speeches, which would be a powerful gesture.

The Pope could also meet with the victims privately, as he has done before, most recently on a trip to Portugal in 2023.

But representatives of survivors demanded that the Pope acknowledge the sexual violence against East Timorese children by church representatives, including Bishop Belo.

“Those abused by Bishop Belo and other clergy will be expecting a public statement from the Pope on the Church's ongoing failure to deal with its wayward clergy,” said Tony Gribben, founder of the Northern Ireland-based Dromore Massacre Survivors' Association.

Mr Gribben said a meeting would have “limited value”, pointing to the Pope's apologies to abuse victims on a trip to Ireland in 2018. “The event was a well-thought-out PR exercise,” he added.

“But since then everything has been going on as usual.”