Over the last couple of weeks, Pope Francis hoisted himself up on sore legs dozens of times. As he crisscrossed large swaths of the Asia Pacific region, he shuffled from cars to his wheelchair, from the wheelchair to makeshift papal thrones and on and off many planes as hot, tropical winds blew on the tarmac.
The trip amounted to the longest and farthest reaching yet for Francis, and at 87, some of his supporters fear it may be one of his last. But that he flew thousands of miles to Asian countries with relatively small Catholic populations, braving oppressive temperatures and high levels of humidity and pollution, underlined Francis’s commitment to building a church with a less Eurocentric future.
“The long distance, the fatigue, the challenges,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny, a close aide to Francis. “They are part of the message.”
Francis’ papacy has from the start been one of symbols: the small modest cars he’s used, kissing the feet of criminals, the Casio watch he wears. His destinations are as much a part of his teachings as his homilies, and this trip to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore was seen as part of how he has defined his papacy.
The purpose, he has long made clear, is to emphasize outreach and inclusivity. As he visited remote, tropical villages in Papua New Guinea, he put in practice his pledge to embrace what he calls the church’s “peripheries,” faraway, minority or poorer Catholics.
Asia, home to two thirds of the world’s population and an increasingly central player on the global stage, has long been a focus for Francis. He has been unable to go to China, where the church sees enormous potential but also faces great obstacles. China and the Vatican do not have official diplomatic relations even though Francis signed a groundbreaking and heavily criticized deal with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops.
But with this trip he completed a tour of much of its surrounding region, visiting eleven countries around China. Francis departs his last stop, Singapore, on Friday, and then returns to the Vatican.
For his supporters, the fact that he did all of this at 87, after suffering a series of health issues, and saying that traveling had become harder, only made his endeavor more meaningful. As Pope Francis shook hands, and gleefully waved to the crowd, bishops held on to their purple skullcaps in the wind and looked on at him in admiration.
“I don’t know where he finds the energy,” said Bishop Jozef Roszynski of Wewak, in Papua New Guinea. “Yesterday he was on the trolley going all over the place.”
Pope Francis showed moments of great vitality during the trip. He spoke off the cuff, cracking jokes about crocodiles, cats, dogs and the Devil. In Papua New Guinea he flew over vast timber forests on an Australian Air Force plane to a remote Pacific town.
There, he put on a feathered headdress, then traveled by the sandy coastline to an even more remote school run by Argentine missionaries, where he drank mate tea. In the capital of a country that has seen bloody tribal violence, he sat in a scorching stadium and asked the thousands of people gathered if they preferred harmony or confusion. Then, like an entertainer, he said, “I can’t hear you,” to get a louder, more emphatic response.
He also had times in which he appeared tired or less engaged. As he gave a speech to leaders in the capital, Port Moresby, and praised a land “so far from Rome but so close to the heart of the Catholic Church,” he stopped several times to cough.
In Jakarta, he did not lead the Mass at the stadium, which would involve lots of standing, and as he arrived in Port Moresby, he appeared to lose his balance for a moment.
But he went on, and locals appreciated the effort.
“Now I feel I am part of a universal church, and that we are not just somewhere remote,” said Justin Ain Soongie, the bishop of Wabag, a small town in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, as he exited a meeting with Francis at a local church with enormous fans slicing through the warm air.
Pope John Paul II visited Papua New Guinea in 1984, at age 63, but Francis, Bishop Ain Soongie pointed out, “took the risk to come especially at this age and on a wheelchair.” By traveling so far away, he added, “He is living what he is saying.”
In East Timor, about half of the country attended a Mass presided over by Francis, and people climbed on roofs to get a glimpse of him. Huge billboards with Francis’ face appeared among sheet metal shacks in impoverished suburbs and in the lush gardens of Singapore. Around the region, faithful wearing suits, dusty T-shirts or straw skirts waved Vatican flags. In Papua New Guinea, troubled by local rivalries, people came together to see the pope, some after walking across the forest for days.
Chris Anowan, 54, a school principal there, traveled to the city of Vanimo one week before Francis’ visit, because the dirt road connecting his village to the town had dried out from rains, and he did not know how long it would remain passable.
“For me, it’s like seeing Saint Peter,” said Mr. Anowan, as he waited for Pope Francis with rosaries and plastic bottles of water ready to be blessed. “It’s the first time a pope comes here,” he said, referring to Vanimo.
Some of those who traveled alongside the pope from Italy, a country where the number of practicing Catholics has steadily declined, were impressed by the local fervor.
While the number of Catholics in Asia is growing at a slower pace than that of Africa, the church is lively here. Countries like Indonesia, where for centuries Europeans went to evangelize, are now exporting missionaries.
“If the Catholic Church wants to have a place in the future it cannot be excluded from Asia,” said Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, a Catholic group close to Francis.
Francis, who as a young priest in the Jesuit religious order had wanted to go as a missionary to Japan to follow the centuries-old pursuit of his predecessors, has acknowledged the region’s importance.
He has worked to improve the Catholic Church’s relations with Vietnam as well as China and named over a dozen Asian cardinals — including from countries like East Timor and Singapore, which had never had one.
But Asia, experts say, is also a testing ground for the church, as Catholics here often coexist with bigger religious groups.
“The Catholic Church and the papacy are learning to confront themselves with a world in which Christianity is a minority,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Villanova University, in Pennsylvania. Asia, he said, is “the most challenging continent.”
Indonesia, the main stop of the trip, encapsulated this reality. It is the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, but also home to millions of Christians. Coexistence is at the heart of its identity, even though episodes of intolerance against Christians persist.
There, Pope Francis signed an agreement with Nasaruddin Umar, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest mosque, as the two men exchanged affectionate embraces.
“With the pope coming here, other countries will see how we live peacefully together,” Catur Rini, 63, a Muslim woman who had come to the event in Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque with her Catholic high school friend. “He will share it with the world.”
In the last stop of his trip in Singapore, a financial powerhouse with only a small Catholic population, Francis filled the city-state’s national stadium with worshipers for a Mass.
Kat Calimag, 32, a veterinarian, had gone there just a few months ago to watch Taylor Swift perform. This time, too, fans screamed and cried.
“Same energy,” she said.
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