Pope Francis leaves Monday on an 11-day trip to Southeast Asia and Oceania, the longest and among the most complicated of his tenure. It could be particularly challenging for Francis, 87, who has been using a wheelchair and battling health problems.
But the trip, which includes a stop in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim majority country — also signals he has no intention of slowing down his outreach to faraway Catholics.
Francis will visit four countries for a total of about 20,000 miles by plane. From Indonesia he goes to Papua New Guinea, then East Timor and Singapore, as he deepens his engagement with Asia, one of his priorities.
The trip will include more than 43 hours of air travel and meetings with local faithful, clergy and politicians in cities with tropical climates or high levels of pollution on the other side of the world from Rome.
“It’s a physical test,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Villanova University, “and a sign that this pontificate is far from being over.”
Why is he visiting these countries?
The pope chose four island nations as he extends his outreach to what he calls “the peripheries,” a term for overlooked, faraway places with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities. The trip is also one of Francis’ boldest engagements with Asia, a fast-growing part of the world, which the pope has always regarded as a strategic objective.
Francis made a largely secretive deal with China in 2018 for the appointment of bishops, but not all issues have been resolved, as China’s government still exerts strong political control over religious life, said Gianni Criveller, dean of studies at the PIME International Missionary School of Theology in Milan.
While no pope has been able to visit China, Francis has taken trips, such as to Mongolia, that have basically put him on China’s doorstep. This time as well, Mr. Faggioli said, the trip is seen as an attempt to “talk to countries he can’t go to.”
He said the trip also showed Francis’ ambition to make the Roman Catholic Church truly global — drawing attention to areas not traditionally of Christian culture and where Catholicism coexists with other religions, relying on the communities’ devotion rather than on wealth, endowments or a historical hegemony.
Unlike in Europe, the Catholic church in Asia does not “rest on its laurels,” said Mr. Faggioli, and believing is in some cases still an act of resistance.
“He sends a message to all the Catholics,” Mr. Faggioli said. “That the future of the church looks more like these churches in which we are a minority than those in which we are a majority.”
The pope’s first stop, Indonesia, also reflects Francis’ commitment to promoting dialogue between Muslims and Christians. He was the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, in 2019.
He is also likely to urge global action to protect the environment, in a part of the world that is particularly vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels and severe weather events like droughts and typhoons.
Is the pope too frail for such a trip?
The Vatican originally had considered the trip for 2020 but canceled it because of the pandemic. Despite being older now, the pope is committed to showing that despite his age and ailments he is “still alive though some wanted me dead,” as he once joked.
In recent years, Francis’ health has been a source of concern. Within three years, he underwent a hernia operation, had colon surgery and was hospitalized for a respiratory infection. Last year, he did not attend a summit in Dubai because of health problems.
Still, the pope has been seen walking in recent weeks, instead of using a wheelchair, as he has increasingly done.
In the 11-day trip, he will be accompanied by his medical team (two nurses and a doctor) and, in a first, by his secretaries. Matteo Bruni, the Vatican’s spokesman, said at a news briefing on Friday that no extra precautions were taken for this trip, as the measures they normally adopt were considered sufficient.
Still, the ambitious itinerary for the octogenarian leader of the world’s Roman Catholics inevitably has stirred questions about the impact on his health.
Reporters questioned Mr. Bruni about the 92 percent humidity that the pope would face in Vanimo, a town tucked between Papua New Guinea’s rainforest and the Pacific Ocean. Markus Solo, an Indonesian priest who focuses on interfaith dialogue at the Vatican, said he worried about the impact that Jakarta’s high pollution could have, partly because Francis lost part of a lung to infection as a teenager.
“Hopefully, the government will do something in order to reduce the pollution during the visit,” he said.
The head of the Environmental Service of Jakarta, Asep Kuswanto, said no specific plans for curbing air pollution had been made for the pope’s visit.
Still, it appeared that some measures had been taken to protect the pope’s health. Francis was not expected to visit Flores, a predominantly Catholic Indonesian island.
“His health condition doesn’t permit him to go all that way,” said Father Solo, originally from Flores. “We have to be very prudent.”
Ismail Cawidu, a senior official at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, an important stop on the visit, said that the pope would not tour the inside of the mosque but instead meet other religious leaders at a plaza outside.
Mr. Ismail said they had asked the Vatican if the pope could cross the “tunnel of friendship” that connects the mosque, Southeast Asia’s largest, with a Catholic cathedral but were still awaiting a response.
What can we expect from the trip?
Indonesia has a large Christian population, with a lively Catholic community. The country has been considered an example of interfaith tolerance but is still facing challenges to its image, as extremist Islamic groups have exerted growing pressure on other religions.
The pope’s visit to the Istiqlal mosque will include a meeting with representatives of the country’s officially recognized religions — Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Catholic and Protestant Christianity. He will also celebrate Mass at a stadium in the city, where tens of thousands are likely to attend.
Papua New Guinea, where more than 800 languages are spoken, is one of the world’s poorest countries, and Pope Francis “wants to send a message that he can reach everyone, that nobody is too faraway,” Father Criveller said. After spending most of next weekend in Port Moresby, the capital, Francis will fly north to the coastal town of Vanimo, and he may address the issue of protecting nature from extractive businesses and the effects of climate change.
In East Timor, Asia’s newest nation and the only predominantly Catholic country on the trip, Francis is to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II, who also visited the conflict-scarred nation. Francis may face questions over the scandal involving Carlos Ximenes Belo, a Nobel-winning bishop and independence hero who the Vatican acknowledged had sexually abused young boys.
In Singapore, an economic powerhouse with a blend of Asian ethnicities and religions, Francis will witness one of the world’s most diverse societies up close, as well as a small but dynamic Catholic community, where the faithful still crowd pews.
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