KUALA LUMPUR – Pope Francis will be undertaking one of his most ambitious trips since becoming pope in 2013, travelling 30,000km to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore in September.
According to Holy See Press Office director Matteo Bruni, the 87-year-old pope will undertake an apostolic journey from September 2 to 13.
He will visit Jakarta from September 3 to 6, Port Moresby and Vanimo from September 6 to 9, Dili from September 9 to 11, and Singapore from September 11 to 13.
The full programme will be published at a later date.
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, where Catholics number more than 8 million, or 3.1% of the population.
Some 32% or 2 million of Papua New Guinea’s population are Catholic, while Timor-Leste is overwhelmingly Catholic, accounting for around 96% of the population or more than 1 million people.
Some 395,000 Catholics live in Singapore, about 3% of the population.
The pope has been in frail health in recent years, even skipping the Good Friday Way of the Cross procession in Rome two weeks ago.
Last December, he formally approved Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples, which was a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive. – April 12, 2024