Some 600,000 people are expected to gather in a field outside Timor-Leste’s capital Dili on Tuesday afternoon, for what is set to be one of the biggest masses of Pope Francis’s papacy. The open-air congregation will represent nearly half the population of the small Southeast Asian country - one of the most Roman Catholic places on Earth and the only Catholic-majority nation the pontiff is visiting on his Asia-Pacific tour.

DILI: Pope Francis hosted a mass for hundreds of thousands of devotees in Timor-Leste on Tuesday (Sep 10), rallying the faithful of the most Catholic country outside the Vatican in the tropical heat.

Pope Francis has touched down in Timor-Leste - the only Catholic-majority country he will visit on his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour. Around 700,000 people - more than half of Timor-Leste's entire population - are expected to attend an open-air mass that the Pope will celebrate near the capital Dili later on Tuesday.