Welcomed By Ramos Horta, Pope Francis Arrives In Timor Leste

Pope Francis/DOK via Instagram @franciscus

JAKARTA - Pope Francis arrived in Timor Leste, a predominantly Catholic country in Southeast Asia, for a three-day visit that includes the Great Mass.

The Vatican estimates that Mass will be attended by more than half the number of Catholics in Timor Leste whose population is 1.3 million.

Pope Francis (87 years) is on a 12-day visit to four countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania, which is his longest overseas trip.

Pope Francis came to Timor Leste from Papua New Guinea on Sunday, Pope Francis sent medical supplies to a small town located on the edge of a vast forest, in one of the most remote areas in the world.

Pope Francis landed in Dili, the capital of Timor Leste, on Monday, September 9 afternoon when he was close.

He was greeted at the airport by President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta and a group of schoolchildren wearing traditional clothes, who offered him flowers and tai, weaving ceremony scarf.

Timor Leste, a half-island country north of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, after decades of brutal occupation. Pope Francis is the second Pope to visit after Pope John Paul II, who came in 1989, on a journey that provided a historic boost to the country's independence movement.