While I'm sure this isn't breaking news (I heard of it via a staggeringly unbiassed news report from Radio Australia), I must share my absolute delight that in this day and age, so otherwise dark and evil, a small, materially very poor, yet fervent and spiritually rich nation like East Timor should be about to confirm and confess its people's possession of the True Faith (its population being 97% Catholic, very much practising, and virtually all its inhabitants being religious believers) by signing a proper concordat (sorry, ABC, your ignorance shews: "concordata" may be the Portuguese term, but in English we say "concordat") with the Holy See, recognizing the Catholic Church, according it - as is most just - rights and privileges, such as guarantees of its properties and its freedom to educate, and promising to enshrine in law the Church's solemn teaching against abortion and other evils such as prostitution.
It especially pleased me to hear that the President of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta, who during the long years of the Indonesian Occupation (1975-1999) campaigned ceaselessly from exile for his nation's freedom, is himself a fervent Catholic, and humbly admits to hearing a Voice assure him that "Your time is not yet" while he lay in his own blood after a nearly-successful assassination attempt earlier this year. I had always admired him for his seemingly hopeless struggle to win his nation independence, and for his great work as first Foreign Minister, then Prime Minister, and now President of his country, but to hear that he is a firm believing fellow Catholic is a most wonderful joy.
As an Australian, I am proud that my nation erased in a measure the blot on her conscience by finally supporting East Timor's gaining independence in the aftermath of the 1999 referendum there, and has assisted East Timor ever since, after the detestable infamy of Australia's complicity in the Indonesian takeover of that nascent state by Indonesia - then a vile military dictatorship - and her craven recognition of Indonesia's immoral and unlawful annexation thereof in 1978. (Bizarrely enough, I can forgive Whitlam many things, but not that deplorable act. Ditto for Fraser!)
Viva Timor-Leste!
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