VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis leaves on Monday for a four-nation tour of Southeast Asian island nations. The ambitious trip to spur global action against climate change may test the 87-year-old head of the world Catholic Church. Over 12 days, from September 2 to 13, the pope will cover some 33,000 kilometers (20,500 miles) in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. It is the longest journey yet for the pope, who now regularly uses a wheelchair due to knee and back pain. The pontiff was a strong promoter of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, and aides say he wants to continue urging people to confront the dangers of a rapidly warming world, especially by helping the most vulnerable. Rising sea levels and increasingly severe and unpredictable heat waves and typhoons are threatening the countries he is visiting. The trip will begin in Indonesia, where Jakarta, the capital, has been hit by devastating floods in recent years and is gradually sinking, prompting the government to build a new $32 billion capital on the island of Borneo. Francis is scheduled to headline more than 40 events along the way, and some observers say beyond the specific itinerary, Francis is eager to show that he is still capable of leading a church of 1.4 billion believers, despite his advanced age and ill health.
“This shows the strength of Pope Francis,” said Massimo Faggioli, an Italian scholar who has followed the papacy closely.
What does the Pope hope to accomplish?
Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia, noted that no pope has ever traveled abroad at such an age. Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI, abdicated at 85. John Paul II, who had Parkinson's disease, made his final foreign trip at 84. The trip marks the papal 45th foreign trip since his election in March 2013. The pope has spoken frequently about reaching out to marginalized people and groups, and has prioritized visiting places no pope has been to before and where Catholics are in the minority.
“Francis has pretty much drawn a new map of the Church,” Faggioli said. “It is now a global Catholic Church, and the Church is not just expanding globally, it is truly globalized.” The agenda also includes a renewed push for Catholic-Muslim dialogue, a long-time priority for Francis, who in 2019 became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, with around 280 million people, of which only around 3% are Catholic. Pope Francis will take part in an interfaith meeting at Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque, Southeast Asia's largest.
Jeremy Menchick, a political scientist at Boston University who has written extensively on Indonesian politics, noted that the mosque is located across from Jakarta's Catholic cathedral and said Indonesia is in a “golden age” of interreligious dialogue.
“This is a time for pluralism rather than polemics,” he said. The pope will arrive in Jakarta around midday on Tuesday and leave for Papua New Guinea three days later. He will have no public activities on Tuesday, except for a short official welcome at the airport, as he rests after a more than 13-hour overnight flight.
Why did the Pope choose Asia? The Pope will hold official meetings with political officials, diplomats and local Catholics in each of the four countries. He will also lead outdoor celebrations of Catholic Mass in all four countries.
Catholics widely see Asia as fertile ground for spreading a faith that is in decline in the Western world.
Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific program at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, said the pope's visit to Asia despite health concerns “speaks to the strategic importance of Asia to the church.”
Papua New Guinea, with an official population of about 9 million, has about 2.5 million Catholics, according to the Vatican. East Timor, with a population of 1.3 million, is about 96% Catholic, and Singapore has about 210,000 Catholics out of a population of 5.92 million, according to the Vatican.
