Child abuse scandals hang over Pope Francis’ East Timor visit

Catholic faithful take pictures with installed two life-size boards of Pope Francis after a Sunday mass at the Church of Saint Anthony of Motael ahead of Pope Francis’ visit in Dili on September 8, 2024. (Photo by Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP)

DILI, East Timor — When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to visit an independent East Timor, he will confront a clergy beset by child abuse scandals that have been largely ignored by the deeply Catholic country’s freedom heroes.

Cases include Nobel-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who helped Asia’s youngest nation free itself from Indonesian occupation, but who the Vatican secretly punished over claims he had sexually abused young children for decades.

There are calls for the 87-year-old pontiff to speak out on child abuse when he lands in the former Portuguese colony Monday as part of his Asia-Pacific tour.

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“We ask Your Holiness to encourage the leaders and the 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 Wednesday to Francis.

BishopAccountability.org, a documentation centre on Catholic Church abuse, also called on the Vatican’s sexual abuse commission chief, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, to “urge” Francis to “be the victims’ champion” on his visit.

Catholic-majority East Timor is one of many countries that has suffered the global scourge of child abuse by members of the clergy long veiled in secrecy.

In 2002 Pope John Paul II accepted the abrupt resignation of Bishop Belo, then the head of East Timor’s church, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.

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The Vatican said it was for health reasons but did not explain further.

It then permitted him to be sent to Mozambique as a missionary where he worked with children, before he moved to Portugal.

The Vatican secretly sanctioned the bishop in 2020 after claims he sexually abused underage boys over a 20-year period up to 2002.

It banned Belo from any contact with children or with East Timor, conditions it said he formally accepted.

Only when Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer reported the restrictions in 2022, including testimony from a victim who said they were raped by Belo, did the Vatican go public.

The Dutch magazine report’s author says allegations about Belo were known in 2002.

Francis later suggested the decision to let Belo retire instead of face consequences was made when attitudes were different.

Widespread support

The bishop had won the Nobel Prize for his defense of human rights during the Indonesian occupation, which lasted more than two decades.

He is revered at home for sheltering young demonstrators and saving their lives.

It has helped him retain strong support among the country’s 1.3 million people, of which 98 percent are Catholic.

“We feel we have lost him. We miss him,” Maria Dadi, East Timor national youth council president, told AFP.

“Because after all he really contributed to the struggle of Timor-Leste.”

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

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but has also found support at the highest levels of Timorese society.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao courted controversy last year when he visited Daschbach to celebrate his birthday and shared cake with the convicted pedophile. He also attended his trial.

For many in the country, they favour Belo returning for the pope’s visit.

“We are very sad without the presence of Bishop Belo,” said 58-year-old academic Francisco Amaral da Silva.

“The government and the Catholic Church should invite him.”

East Timor’s presidential office did not respond to a request for comment. President Jose Ramos-Horta has said punishments for Belo should be handled by the Vatican.

‘Limited value’

The pontiff will meet with the Catholic faithful, children, Jesuits and preside over a huge mass during his stay in the capital Dili.

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

The pope’s schedule does not include a meeting with victims, and the Vatican did not comment before he departed Rome.

Yet he could ad-lib the subject in one of his speeches, which would be a strong gesture.

Francis could also meet victims privately as he has done before, the latest on a 2023 Portugal trip.

But survivor advocates said the pope must acknowledge the sexual violence by Church officials on East Timorese children, including by Belo.

“Those abused by Bishop Belo and other clergy will expect a public statement by Pope Francis on the Church’s continued failure to deal with its wayward clergy,” said Tony Gribben, founder of the Northern Ireland-based Dromore survivors group.

Gribben said a meeting would “have limited value”, citing apologies given by Francis to abuse victims on an Ireland trip in 2018.

“The event was a well-crafted PR exercise,” he added.

“But since then, it’s business as usual.”