(10 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tasitolu, East Timor – 10 September 2024
1. Various of faithful awaiting Mass with Pope Francis, gathered beneath yellow and white umbrellas
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press:
"Pope Francis is celebrating Mass in East Timor. Tens of thousands of people have come out. It’s a sea of yellow and white umbrellas. These are the colours of the Holy See. They’re trying to shade themselves from the very hot sun. This is the same site as where Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in 1989. At the time, East Timor was part of Indonesia. It was fighting for independence and John Paul had come to encourage the people, the overwhelmingly Catholic people of East Timor, in their independence fight. Pope Francis is now here. It’s an independent nation. He’s the first pope to come back to celebrate their independence, celebrate their faith and urge them to continue developing. It’s a poor country, but they are very rich in faith."
3. Tilt up of faithful waiting
STORYLINE:
Tens of thousands of East Timorese streamed toward a seaside park for Pope Francis’ big Mass on Tuesday, as the pontiff continues his historic visit to one of the world’s youngest and poorest countries.
More than 300,000 faithful are expected at the Eucharistic celebration, including several thousand living near the border of Indonesia’s West Timor, the western part of the island of Timor.
The crowds waited beneath a sea of yellow and white umbrellas, the colours of the Holy See, seeking respite from the blazing hot sun.
The event is being held on the same field where St. John Paul II celebrated an historic liturgy during the nation’s fight for independence from Indonesia.
That visit helped draw attention to the plight of the Timorese people and shine a spotlight on the oppressiveness of Indonesia’s rule, during which as many as 200,000 people were killed over a quarter-century.
Francis now follows in John Paul’s footsteps to cheer the Southeast Asian nation on two decades after it finally became an independent state in 2002.
East Timor, known also as Timor-Leste, remains one of the poorest countries, with some 42% of its 1.3 million people living below the poverty line, according to the U.N. Development Program.
But the Timorese are deeply faithful – the territory has been overwhelmingly Catholic ever since Portuguese explorers first arrived in the early 1500s and some 97% of the population today is Catholic.
They lined up before dawn by the tens of thousands to enter the Tasitolu park, on the coast about 8 kilometers (nearly 5 miles) from downtown Dili.
With hours to go until the service, the roads leading to it were jammed by cars, trucks and buses packed with people; others walked down the middle of the street, ignoring the sidewalks.
AP video shot by Helena Alves
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