Pope Francis’ Mass In East Timor Draws 600,000 People, Nearly Half The Population

TASITOLU, East Timor (AP) — The Vatican says some 600,000 people have attended Pope Francis’ Mass in East Timor, or nearly half the country’s population.

It’s held Tuesday on the same field where St. John Paul II prayed in 1989 during the nation’s fight for independence from Indonesia.

While other papal Masses have drawn millions of people in more populous countries and there were certainly other nationalities attending Tuesday’s Mass, the crowd in small East Timor is believed to represent the biggest turnout for a papal event ever, in terms of the proportion of the population.