By William J. Furney
Pope Francis arrived in tiny East Timor on Monday and will celebrate mass in the former Indonesian territory on Tuesday but the $12 million bill the government is footing for the visit has drawn harsh criticism.
A total of $1.2 million was allocated from the papal-visit budget to construct an altar for the mass, which will be held in a dirt field in Tasitolu, near the capital, Dili, local media reported.
Pope Francis, 87, arrived in Muslim-majority Indonesia last Tuesday at the start of a gruelling four-nation tour that has also taken in Papua New Guinea and will end in Singapore.
The Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis, a non-governmental organisation based in Dili, hit out at the cost of the papal visit, saying the hefty figure for the mass alone was too much.
A researcher at the institute, Marino Fereira, told the Associated Press news agency that it had been lobbying the government to allocate a greater share of its budget — totalling $3.16 billion last year — to poverty reduction, to no avail. The government continued to “[ignore] the poor in the country” while lavishing millions of dollars on ceremonies, he said.
The East Timor government said that the $12 million spent on the pope’s visit might seem high but that, in reality, the funds were being used for the people’s benefit as roadworks and building renovations had been undertaken.
Minister of State Administration Tomas Cabral said the poor state of the country’s roads and other infrastructure meant that significant work needed to be carried out ahead of Pope Francis’ visit. And that the $1.2 million spent on the papal mass included transport so that people could attend the event.
The pontiff, who has suffered from health problems in recent years and has used a wheelchair for part of his trip to Southeast Asia, was greeted at President Nicolau Lobato International Airport by President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao when his plane touched down shortly after 2pm local time on Monday.
The pope was due to give a speech later in the day, visit a convent on Tuesday morning and celebrate mass in the afternoon, with around 700,000 of East Timor’s 1.3 million people expected to attend. Nearly half, or 42 percent, of the country’s population lives below the poverty line, the United Nations Development Programme says.
The following morning, Pope Francis is due to meet with young people before departing for wealthy city-state Singapore.
“The celebration of the Solemn Mass … will be a special moment of faith and unity for all Timorese,” the East Timor government said in a statement.
Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when East Timor — now called Timor Leste — is embroiled in a scandal allegedly involving Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who is accused of molesting young boys several decades ago. The Vatican said it had taken action against the bishop, including excluding him from contact with young people.
East Timor, once a Portuguese colony and ruled by Indonesia after the giant neighbour invaded in 1976, became independent in 2002, making it one of the world’s newest countries.
* Photo credit: Vatican Media