Pope Francis has arrived in East Timor for a three-day visit that will include an open-air celebration of Mass the Vatican says might include more than half the population of 1.3 million.
The 87-year-old pontiff is on an ambitious 12-day visit to four countries across Southeast Asia and Oceania, his longest overseas journey yet.
He came to East Timor from Papua New Guinea, where on Sunday he delivered medical supplies to a small town at the edge of a vast jungle, in one of the most remote areas of the world.
Schoolchildren offered the Pope flowers and a woven ceremonial scarf as he arrived. (AP PHOTO)
Francis landed in Dili, the Timorese capital, on Monday afternoon.
He was met at the airport by President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta and a group of schoolchildren dressed in traditional outfits, who offered him flowers and a tais, a woven ceremonial scarf.
East Timor, a half-island nation north of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a brutal, decades-long occupation.
"Our great hope is that he may come to consolidate the fraternity, the national unity, peace and development for this new country," said Estevao Tei Fernandes, a university professor.
Francis is the second pope to visit, following John Paul II, who went in 1989, in a trip that gave the country's independence movement an historic boost.
The country is likely the most Catholic in the world, with the Vatican saying 96 per cent of Timorese are adherents to the faith.
Organisers are preparing for some 750,000 people to attend a Mass with Francis on Tuesday at the Tasitolu, a wide, dusty coastal area where Indonesian forces were known to bury killed Timorese independence fighters.
Since independence, the country has struggled with rebuilding its infrastructure and economy.
In 2014, the World Bank estimated that some 42 per cent of Timorese live in poverty and that some 47 per cent of children are stunted because of malnutrition.
The Pope was welcomed at the airport by East Timor President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta (centre). (AP PHOTO)
Although Timorese have remained overwhelmingly Catholic, the church in the country has been affected recently by abuse scandals.
In 2022, the Vatican confirmed it had sanctioned Timorese Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo following allegations he sexually abused boys in Timor in the 1990s. Belo, who shared the 1996 Nobel peace prize with Ramos-Horta for their independence efforts, lives in Portugal.
A year earlier, a defrocked American priest, Richard Daschbach, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing girls under his care in Timor.
A leading abuse survivor advocacy group called on Francis to speak openly about the cases during his visit.
"The Pope must denounce the two men by name," said Anne Barrett Doyle, of the abuse tracking group BishopAccountability.org.
"His words could have an enormous positive impact."
The Pope's first address in the country will come later Monday, when Francis is due to address the political authorities.
Francis is visiting East Timor until Wednesday as part of a tour that also included a stop in Indonesia.
He travels next to Singapore before returning to Rome on September 13.