This is the week of Pope Francis's Asia-Pacific tour. I did a double-take at the itinerary. I have no idea how the 87-year-old Pope would cover four countries in 11 days — Indonesia (Jakarta), Papua New Guinea, East Timor and ending in a three-day-stay in Singapore. The humidity...
Sui-Lee Wee for The New York Times noted in her article published on September 9, 2024 that,
The pope chose four island nations as he extends his outreach to what he calls “the peripheries,” a term for overlooked, faraway places with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities. The trip is also one of Francis’ boldest engagements with Asia, a fast-growing part of the world, which the pope has always regarded as a strategic objective.
I did wonder why the Pope would put Singapore in this category. Aren't we largely pluralistic even as we are kinda religious, multi-religious? Catholics are certainly not persecuted here, nor are they that much of a minority. But yes, Buddhism still accounts for ~31% of the population. Whatever. You know where I stand on the matter of a religious nation versus a secular republic.
The Catholic Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore, has been raising funds for the papal visit, such as through the sale of specially designed souvenirs for the visit. 5000 over volunteers from the 32 Catholic parishes in Singapore have been hard at work doing what Singapore does best, get events done right efficiently for the Pope's arrival on September 11. There're about 300,000+ Catholics in Singapore.
Of course there would be the very familiar strategies to 'hide the ugly', so to speak, routinely employed by all governments in the world before any major global event happening in the city.
In East Timor, the same NYT article flagged that there have been outcries against the government-mandated eviction of unlicensed food vendors, and homes along the streets in which the Pope would pass by. Apparently the people have accused the government of forcibly evicting vendors and arbitrarily demolishing their shops without prior notice or talk of compensation.
Joana Fraga Ximenes stared at rubble in the district of Bidau that had been her home and a street stall, from which she sold sundries. Earlier this year, she said, the authorities had given her three days to move because the pope was going to be driven down her street. Eventually, they sent bulldozers.
“Why do we have to hide the poverty?” Ms. Ximenes, 42, said over the weekend. “This is reality. The pope is not coming to see good things in Timor-Leste. The pope is here to see our real lives.”
Also, who could forget Bishop Belo, the former head of the Catholic church, who alongside President Jose Ramos-Horta, won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for their role in bringing about the peaceful end of the conflict. We remember the very public accusations of sexual abuse of children by Bishop Belo dating from 1980.
The Vatican finally sanctioned him in 2022, while he is supposedly based in Portugal. Belo has never been officially charged in East Timor and never addressed in publicly either. The one person that has been accused, tried and sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2021 is American missionary Richard Daschbach. During the visit to East Timor, Pope Francis mentioned sexual abuse and being upfront about preventing and mentioning them, but did not directly mention Bishop Belo.
According to court records, government inquiries, church officials' comments, survivors' testimonies and news media reports, at least 10 of these priests have been moved to Papua New Guinea (PNG), and continued their pattern of abuse of children. For example, the now-deceased Roger Mount who was moved from Australia to PNG in the 1980s. But the Pope didn't seem to have addressed these issues directly in his three-day visit to PNG.
And this is my biggest beef with the Catholic Church, or any religion, which extends also to large corporation or organization, including sports federations and such. The sexual abuse of the most vulnerable children, and cover-ups by informed adults and people in positions of power. Yet people trust or knowingly turn a blind eye. WHY. I'll leave the rest unsaid.
Francis has apologized repeatedly for the church’s global sex abuse scandal and ordered clergy to report allegations of sexual abuse. Last year, he told The Associated Press that the allegations against Bishop Belo had to be out in the open, but that the church had a different way of handling matters like these in the past.
Asked whether he thought the pope should talk about Bishop Belo during his visit, Mr. Ramos-Horta said the matter had “already been addressed years ago by the Vatican.” He said any restitution had already been made between the church and the victims, who he said did not want to bring their cases to court.
“Bishop Belo is still very much revered by the majority of the people because of his role in the past, a lot of courage in sheltering people, protecting people,” Mr. Ramos-Horta said.
In the wake of the news about Bishop Belo, many Timorese people were angry — but the fury was directed at the alleged victims. A journalist who tried to pursue the allegations received death threats, according to Mr. Trindade, the former government adviser.
“When a child is raped in a devoutly Catholic country, and the predator is both a bishop and national hero, survivors will feel especially helpless and intimidated into staying silent,” Anne Barrett Doyle, a co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks allegations of sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy worldwide, said in a statement.
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