Pope calls for child abuse cases in East Timor to be addressed

(UPDATE) DILI, East Timor — Pope Francis is the first pope to visit independent East Timor, where he will meet a clergy rocked by child abuse scandals that have been largely ignored by the deeply Catholic country's freedom heroes.

The cases also 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 for allegedly sexually abusing 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 as part of his Asia-Pacific tour.

Homage Pope Francis blesses a nun during a meeting with missionaries at the Holy Trinity Humanities School during a visit to Baro, Papua New Guinea, September 8, 2024. AFP PHOTO

“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 Pope Francis on Wednesday.

BishopAccountability.org, a documentation center on abuse in the Catholic Church, also called on the chairman of the Vatican's sexual abuse commission, 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.

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 Belo, that the Vatican turned to the public.

Pope Francis later said that the decision to let Belo resign rather than face the consequences was made when opinions changed.

“Limited value”

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

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

A meeting with the victims is not scheduled in the Pope's schedule and the Vatican made no comment before his departure from Rome.

Nevertheless, he could improvise the topic in one of his speeches, which would be a strong gesture.

Representatives of survivors demanded that the Pope acknowledge the sexual violence committed by church officials against East Timorese children, including Belo.

No more violence

Meanwhile, Pope Francis visited a remote jungle community in Papua New Guinea on Sunday, calling for an end to violence and the “superstition and magic” that taint a place he compared to the paradise of Eden.

The 87-year-old Pope landed in Vanimo, a coastal town a few degrees south of the equator, marking the halfway point of his grueling 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite the scorching tropical heat, the Pope wore a traditional headdress made of bird of paradise feathers, reaffirming his promise to embrace the people and places “on the periphery”.

He described Vanimo as a “magnificent natural spectacle full of life, reminiscent of the paradise of Eden”.

He was welcomed as the guest of honour by Walsa tribesmen wearing bare-breasted clothes, body paint, ornate headdresses and bands made of feathers, shells and grass, who performed a ceremonial dance.

The Pope thanked the thousands of people who had gathered, some of whom had traveled for days on foot or by boat to see him, and praised the “contagious smiles and exuberant joy” of the local children.

But he also painted it as a troubled paradise.

He called on believers and a handful of local missionaries to help “overcome divisions – personal, family and tribal” and “drive out fear, superstition and magic from the hearts of the people.”