Francis will travel through Southeast Asia and Oceania for almost two weeks. Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore are part of the itinerary focused on interreligious dialogue.
Pope Francis embarked on the longest trip of his pontificate on Monday. The 87-year-old head of the Catholic Church will travel 44 hours and more than 32,000 kilometers over the next two weeks to visit four countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
Francis left Rome at 5.15pm on Monday (4.15pm in Lisbon) for Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where he is due to land at 11.30am local time on Tuesday. The Catholic leader’s agenda for Tuesday is only a brief welcome ceremony at Jakarta airport, followed by a period of rest for Francis to recover from the long plane ride; the official programme begins on Wednesday morning with a visit to the presidential palace.
This is Pope Francis’ 45th international trip and, with the exception of East Timor, he will mainly visit countries where Catholics are a minority. According to the Ecclesia Agency, Francis will use this trip to reinforce issues of global importance, including interreligious dialogue, the refugee issue and the fight against climate change.
“These are countries between ocean and sky, seas and mountains, precious minerals, forests. We can expect a reflection on the care of Creation and on a life worthy of man,” summed up the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, on Friday.
According to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis intends to deepen “the theme of proximity, a concept that so profoundly characterizes the style of his pontificate, and of which the apostolic journeys are a significant expression: closeness to listening, closeness to sharing the weight of the difficulties, sufferings and hopes of the people, and closeness to bringing to all the joy, consolation and hope of the Gospel.”
“The territories that the Pope will visit are characterized by a multiplicity of cultures, confessions and religious traditions,” Parolin told Vatican News, highlighting in particular the case of Indonesia, a nation in which “relations between the different groups have been, fundamentally, marked by acceptance of others, mutual respect, dialogue and moderation.”
Francis’ visit also includes East Timor, a country currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of its independence. For Parolin, the Christian faith “played a decisive role” in the independence efforts 25 years ago and can now “inspire the Timorese to transform society, overcome divisions, effectively combat inequality and poverty and counter negative phenomena such as violence among young people and the violation of the dignity of women.”
Francis also intends to highlight Singapore as “an example of peaceful coexistence in a contemporary multicultural and multireligious society.”
According to the official programme of the trip, Pope Francis will spend two days in Indonesia, where he has diplomatic meetings, meetings with the Catholic community, a large mass and also an interreligious meeting in a mosque. This will be one of the most symbolic moments of the trip: Francis will visit the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia and one of the largest in the world. The mosque is connected to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, also in Jakarta, by a tunnel called the “Tunnel of Friendship”, inaugurated in 2019 to symbolize the friendship between the two religions.
From Jakarta, the Pope will travel to Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, where he will also meet with civil authorities, the Catholic community and church officials.
In East Timor, where he will arrive on Monday 9 September, Francis will visit a religious school where children with disabilities study, he will visit the local Jesuits and he will also have celebrations with the local Catholic community. Finally, Francis will travel to Singapore, where the main theme will be a meeting with people involved in interreligious dialogue and where he will celebrate a Mass in a sports stadium.
Francis will return to Rome on Friday, September 13.
Source: Observadora
