SINGAPORE — Pope Francis will embark on the longest overseas tour of his papacy next week, as he visits four countries across Asia and Oceania on a grueling 11-day trip.
The 87-year-old pontiff is scheduled to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore on a journey emphasizing economic and religious diversity.
The pope has faced recent health challenges and concerns and this is set to be his first overseas trip of 2024.
Francis was forced to pull out of a visit to Dubai last November to recover from a bout of flu and lung inflammation. Ailing health has caused him to cancel several public engagements this year.
The pope currently requires a wheelchair or cane to move about as he deals with mobility issues, caused by persistent knee problems.
Poor health brings doubt on Francis’ ability to complete an 11-day tour in four nations.
“I was extremely surprised when they announced a trip like this. Why four countries? Why so far? Why so long?” said Michel Chambon, a Research Fellow with the Religion and Globalization Cluster at the National University of Singapore.
Added Chambon, he “clearly doesn’t want to slow down.”
Francis will land in Indonesia on Tuesday, becoming the third pope to visit the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.
He will start his visit with a meeting with outgoing President Joko Widodo in the country’s capital, Jakarta.
The pope will host an interfaith gathering with representatives of Indonesia’s six officially recognized religions. The meeting will take place at the largest mosque in Southeast Asia.
“He is going to Indonesia clearly not for Indonesian Catholics. Instead, the priority is to remake and repeat a global statement about Christian-Muslim relations,” Chambon told VOA.
Describing the current state of these relations generally as a “matter of concern,” Chambon says Pope Francis will be “proactive in not letting Christian-Muslim ties be weaponized by political interests.”
Though Francis will aim to promote interfaith tolerance and understanding in Indonesia, ensuring the pontiff’s safety in the country will be a complex challenge.
“Terrorist groups, especially those that target the Catholic Church, still exist in Indonesia and of course Southeast Asia,” said Stanislaus Riyanta, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia’s School of Strategic and Global Studies.
Riyanta says Indonesia’s security services will be on high alert during the visit, enabling them to “carry out early detection, early warning and early prevention of any threats to the pope.”
Security will also be tight in Papua New Guinea when Francis arrives for his first visit to a country in Oceania.
The country’s capital, Port Moresby, was put under a state of emergency in January following deadly riots which spread to other cities in the island-nation of some 10 million people.
Trouble again flared-up in February when a gun fight broke out between tribal communities in remote highlands. Dozens were killed in the violence.
Papua New Guinea is made up of multiple ethnic indigenous groups, with hundreds of languages spoken, yet almost the entirety of the population are Christians, with roughly a quarter Catholic, according to a 2011 census.
Christianity is also dominant in Timor-Leste, the pope’s third stop on his tour. More than 95% of the near 1.5 million population are Catholics, making it one of only two majority-Catholic countries in Asia.
Excitement for the pope’s arrival is building in the former Portuguese colony, but questions remain about a clergy abuse scandal that has shocked the country.
In 2022, the Vatican confirmed that Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had been sanctioned over allegations that he sexually abused young boys.
Belo, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Timor-Leste independence hero, was disciplined with restrictions placed on his movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors. He now resides in Portugal.
“We might see, maybe not protests but, strong questions in Timor-Leste from a number of people, because of the question of sex abuse,” Chambon said.
The Vatican is hoping the pontiff will be able to highlight Catholic tenants such as compassion, caring and generosity during his tour, and especially in Timor-Leste, scholars say.
“Pope Francis is seeking to shine a spotlight on, and remind the rest of the world about, struggling communities in Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste,” said Jonathan Tan, the Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies at Case Western Reserve University.
“They are coping with immense poverty, high illiteracy and unemployment rates, and the effects of climate change on island communities,” Tan told VOA.
Francis’ final stop will be in Singapore, a multi-religious city-state in the heart of Southeast Asia.
Less than 10% of Singapore’s population is Catholic which, according to Tan, presents the pope an opportunity to “encourage and empower minority Catholic communities” in the region.
Francis has made Asia a top priority during his papacy, visiting the continent several times, including trips to South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and Mongolia.
Chambon says the pope’s focus on Asia is a “long-term investment” for the Catholic Church, with his visits “building communion and proximity between Catholics in Asia and the Vatican.”
Trips to the region also present an opportunity for the Vatican to present the ideology of the pope to an Asian audience, says Tan.
“It’s a key issue for the papacy, for the Vatican, to translate its universal ambition into Asian terms and Asian language,” he told VOA.
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