Commentary 24/09/12 Pope Francis celebrates victory of faith in Tacitolu

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Pope Francis celebrates victory of faith in Tacitolu

May we learn from Timor-Leste’s message of struggle, faith, and the pursuit of truth, justice and reconciliation

Published: September 12, 2024 04:44 AM GMT ▾

Pope Francis leads a Holy Mass at the Esplanade of Tacitolu in Dili, Timor-Leste, on Sept. 10. (Photo: AFP)

Pope Francis’ four-nation Asia-Pacific tour, taking in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore, brings back evocative memories for me.

Twenty-two years ago, on May 20, I walked with thousands of Timorese people — young and old — from the center of Timor-Leste’s capital Dili to Tacitolu park eight kilometers away — to witness the birth of the new nation.

I stood among hundreds of thousands as the national anthem was sung for the first time, the flag was raised, the new president, former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao — whom I had the privilege of knowing — was sworn in, and the then Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Kofi Annan declared Timor-Leste’s independence.

Earlier this week, I watched from afar with joy the scenes of more than 600,000 people — half the population — gathered in that same Tacitolu park for Mass with the pope, in one of the biggest masses of his papacy.

In what was the first papal visit to this deeply Catholic half-island nation since Pope St John Paul II’s in 1989, it was what one Timorese described as “a dream come true.”

The fact that Pope Francis celebrated Mass on the same site as the birth of the nation, the same site where St John Paul II had celebrated Mass 35 years ago, and the same site where the Indonesian military disposed of some of the bodies of those they killed during their 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste is profoundly symbolic.

Let us not forget that, although reconciliation between Timor-Leste and Indonesia has been remarkable, at least 200,000 people — a quarter of the half-island territory’s then population — were killed as a result of that occupation.

Let us also not forget that the last papal visit in 1989 was followed by one of Timor-Leste’s pivotal moments — the Santa Cruz massacre.

In 2002 when I was living in Timor-Leste, I walked the route that those protesting in 1991 took to the Santa Cruz cemetery. They had gone to lay flowers on the grave of a young activist, Sebastiao Gomes, who had been shot dead at the Motael Church on the seafront in Dili. As those marchers reached the cemetery, they were hemmed in by Indonesian troops who opened fire.

My friend Constancio Pinto, who later became a minister in the newly independent Timorese government, estimates that 271 people were killed that day. One of the leaders of the march, who was shot, hospitalized and then jailed, was my friend Gregorio da Cunha Saldanha, sentenced to life imprisonment. Another was Francisco Miranda Branco, jailed for 15 years.

Gregorio told me how his faith sustained him. “I trusted God. No one else could help me except God.” Both Gregorio and Francisco were later elected to the newly independent nation’s Parliament.

I became involved with Timor-Leste’s struggle for freedom soon after arriving in Hong Kong in 1997 and befriending Timorese refugees in Macau. In 1999, when the referendum on its freedom was called, and the Indonesian military’s new campaign of terror was unleashed, I prayed and protested alongside the refugees. And in the immediate aftermath of the bloody carnage, I walked through the ashes and played a very small part in helping support those who were rebuilding their reborn nation.

Timor-Leste’s story is one of massacres — and miracles. Its very survival and rebirth are the biggest miracles. But it is made up of many others.

Nine months after a massacre in a church in Liquica, I met the priest, Father Rafael dos Santos. He described how people had been hiding on the roof of his house, and soldiers fired rounds into the ceiling until the blood dripped through and the screams were silenced.

Soldiers also threw tear gas into the church, causing those inside to run out. They were shot dead instantly. But miraculously, while a soldier had tried to shoot him, the gun had jammed and failed to fire and dos Santos survived.

The very first person I met, within half an hour of my arrival in Dili, was a 15-year-old street boy called Amil. He approached me as I unloaded my luggage at a ramshackle half-burned-out hotel.

“My mother — dead,” Amil told me. He drew his index finger down his stomach and demonstrated how his mother’s killers had torn out her intestines. “My mother, with baby, both dead,” he said as his eyes glistened with tears.

“My father dead too,” he continued, indicating a thrusting movement of a spear going through his stomach. “And my big brother too.” His brother’s attackers had burned both sides of his face with cigarette butts and hacked off his arms and legs with machetes. Amil had witnessed this with his own eyes.

And yet despite such horrors, Timor-Leste’s faith-filled Catholics have — largely — embraced reconciliation and forgiveness in a miraculous way.

In the years I was in Timor-Leste — those early years as the new nation tried to recover, reconcile and rebuild — I met true heroes of faith.

I recall Father Domingos Soares — known as ‘Father Maubere’ — whom I met in his beautiful parish in the mountain village of Leti-foho. He spoke to me of reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace. But he also added a truism — that reconciliation cannot happen without the perpetrators of atrocities and violence acknowledging their crimes.

“There is no way for reconciliation without justice,” he told me. “Even with the Cross, there is justice — Jesus paid the price. There must be confession, apology, dialogue.”

Another priest, Father Jovito Araujo, who chaired the justice, truth and reconciliation commission, agreed that justice and reconciliation go hand in hand. “Some people say forget the past, yet it is something which sounds beautiful but is not easy to do,” he said. The Church must help victims to forgive and to understand “how to live in peace.”

I remember staying with the Sisters of Charity of the Precious Blood in their convent in the woods outside Lospalos. In 1999, Indonesian soldiers knocked on their door one night and told the sisters to leave. When they refused, the commander asked: “Don’t you know who I am? I am military.” To which the sister replied: “I know. But I am military too. Military for Christ.”

When I left these sisters, I asked whether we could keep in touch by email. One sister laughed and shook her head. “No, we don’t have email. But we have Emmanuel.” That faith in Emmanuel — “God with us” — is the story of Timor-Leste.

The person who most inspired me, with whom I had the great privilege of working for several years, was a truly remarkable nun. Sister Maria Lourdes Martins da Cruz, or ‘Mana Lou’ as she is known, could be described as Timor-Leste’s Mother Teresa.

The founder of the Secular Institute of Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Mana Lou’s story is full of miracles — but also of grassroots community building and practical solidarity with the poor and oppressed.

During the Indonesian occupation and the carnage of 1999, she had Indonesian soldiers camped outside her community centers in the mountains and was often met at gunpoint. Within minutes she would have soldiers — or their militia — threatening her, then laughing with her, crying with her, and on their knees praying with her.

In the aftermath of the referendum, thousands of people fled into the jungles around her center at Dare — and she and her community fed them. When I asked her how, she looked at me as if I asked a silly question. “God worked a miracle, of course,” she said.

Of course, they did not have enough food for the thousands in need — but, she explained, “each morning I woke up very early, prayed, and started cooking rice. The barrel of rice was not enough to feed many, but as I cooked and prayed, the rice just kept coming out of the barrel. The rice never ran out.” Indeed, the day the rice ran out was the day the international Australian-led peacekeeping force landed.

Lastly, I recall the massacre in a church in Suai in 1999 when 200 people were killed. The parish priest Father Rene Manubag wrote soon after that “the history of East Timor [Timor-Leste]was really written in an ink of blood. Now it is time when we are free to write it in an ink of love, an ink of freedom, an ink of love and peace.”

This brings me, briefly, to the start of the papal tour — in Indonesia.

I worked and traveled in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, third-largest democracy, and fourth-most populous nation, for over a decade. I worked with Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and secular friends to strengthen Indonesia’s tradition of religious pluralism and counter the emerging trend of radical Islamist extremism.

I worked with Indonesia’s Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo, with Yenny and Alissa Wahid, the daughters of former president, Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), with Reverend Gomar Gultom, leader of the main Protestant coalition, the Communion of Churches of Indonesia, and with leaders of Sunni, Shia, Ahmadiyya and other religious groups to protect, promote and strengthen religious freedom in the country.

For that reason, I was thrilled to see the pope celebrate Mass in Jakarta’s Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral — where I have been to Mass dozens of times — and to visit Southeast Asia’s largest mosque just the other side of the road. And I was delighted to see him join forces with one of Indonesia’s leading Islamic clerics in a call for peace.

When I think back to Tacitolu, I recall bumping into my very first Timorese friend, who had been the first to be exiled after the Indonesian invasion of his country: Father Francisco Maria Fernandes. I had met with him in Macau many times. We had marched together in protests several times. And there we were at the birth of his independent nation.

As the fireworks lit up the night sky, the national anthem was sung and the new nation was born, I turned to Fernandes and asked whether he had ever believed he would live to see this day.

He smiled and nodded. “Throughout our struggle, many people told us ‘you are fighting a losing battle, you will never win your freedom, why don’t you just give up.’ But we had one thing those people did not know about. We trusted God. This was a victory of faith.” As he said those words, another firework exploded in the sky.

It was that victory of faith that Pope Francis celebrated in Tacitolu earlier this week.

It is that pursuit of justice and freedom for all people — of every faith and none — that he championed in Indonesia, a country that is at the crossroads between being a champion of religious pluralism and democracy and an example of intolerance, injustice, and constitutional corruption.

And it is these values — of how all of us, of diverse beliefs, live together in harmony — that he has championed throughout this tour along the margins of the globe.

May his message be heard and may his visit help put the region — and its forgotten parts — on the map, as did Pope St John Paul II 35 years ago. And may we above all learn from Timor-Leste’s message of struggle, faith, and the pursuit of truth, justice and reconciliation so that we can build a better story for the world.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.