If any proof is needed that Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Asia and Oceania is the longest, most distant and most challenging of his papacy, it’s that he is bringing along his secretaries of state, who will assist him with the four-nation itinerary, as well as handle work back home.
Mr. Francis will travel 32,814 kilometers (20,390 miles) by air during his visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore from Sept. 2 to 13, far exceeding his previous 44 foreign trips combined and making it one of the longest papal trips ever in terms of both days spent on the road and distance traveled.
This is no small feat for a pope who will turn 88 in December, uses a wheelchair, lost part of a lung to a respiratory infection in his youth and who had to cancel his last foreign trip (a trip to Dubai to attend the UN climate summit in November) at the last minute on doctors’ orders.
But Mr Francis is going ahead with the trip, originally planned for 2020 but postponed because of Covid-19. He is bringing with him a medical team of a doctor and two nurses and is taking the usual health precautions on the ground. But one new thing is that he is also including his personal secretaries in the traditional Vatican delegation of cardinals, bishops and security.
The lengthy trip is reminiscent of the worldwide travels of St. John Paul II, who visited all four sites during his quarter-century papacy, although East Timor was still an occupied part of Indonesia at the time of his historic visit in 1989.
Following in John Paul’s footsteps, Mr. Francis is reinforcing the importance of Asia to the Catholic Church as it is one of the few places where the Church is growing in terms of baptized believers and religious vocations. He is highlighting that this complex region also reflects some of his main priorities as pope – an emphasis on interreligious and intercultural dialogue, care for the environment and the spiritual component of economic development.
Here’s a look at the visit and some of the potential issues, as the Vatican’s ties with China will always be in the background in a region where Beijing wields enormous influence.
Mr Francis will visit an underpass in central Jakarta with Grand Imam Nasrudin Omar, after which the two will attend an interfaith gathering and sign a joint declaration.
Mr. Francis has made improving Christian-Muslim relations a priority and has often used his foreign trips to promote his agenda of calling on religious leaders to work for peace and tolerance and commit to renouncing violence in the name of God.
Tradition of religious tolerance
Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population and has included religious freedom in its constitution, officially recognising six religions – Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Protestantism and Catholicism. Mr Francis will highlight this tradition of religious tolerance and celebrate it as a message to the wider world.
“If we are able to establish cooperation between each other, this could be a great strength of the Indonesian nation,” Imam said in an interview.
Mr Francis was elected pope in 2013. When Mr Francis travels through the jungles of Papua New Guinea, he will be fulfilling one of the mandates he laid out for future popes on the eve of his own election.
There are few places as remote, peripheral and poverty-stricken as the northern coastal town of Vanimo on New Guinea’s main island. There Mr. Francis will meet missionaries from his native Argentina who are working to bring Christianity to a largely tribal people who still practice pagan traditions alongside Catholicism.
“If we abandon our preconceptions, even in tribal cultures we can find human values close to Christian ideals,” said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who heads the Vatican’s Office for Missionary Propaganda and is part of the Vatican delegation. Fides Missionary News agency.
Mr. Francis will likely consider environmental threats to vulnerable and poor places like Papua New Guinea, such as deep-sea mining and climate change, as well as the diversity of its estimated 10 million people, who speak some 800 languages but are vulnerable to tribal conflicts.
When John Paul visited East Timor in 1989, he sought to comfort the predominantly Catholic population there, which had already suffered under 15 years of Indonesia’s brutal and bloody occupation.
“For many years you have experienced the destruction and death as a result of conflict; you know what it means to be victims of hatred and conflict,” John Paul told the faithful during a beach prayer at Tassi-Toli, near Dili.
He directly challenged Indonesia, saying, “I pray that those who have responsibility for life in East Timor will act with wisdom and goodwill towards all as they seek a just and peaceful solution to the present difficulties.”
It took the UN another decade to hold a referendum on Timor’s independence, followed by a fierce campaign by Indonesia that devastated the former Portuguese colony. East Timor emerged as an independent country in 2002 but still bears the trauma and scars of the occupation, which killed more than 200,000 people – roughly a quarter of the population.
“That Mass with the Pope was a very strong, very important moment for Timorese identity,” said Giorgio Bernardelli, editor of the magazine. asianews“It also in many ways highlighted the drama of Timor to the international community,” the missionary news agency said.
Another legacy Mr. Francis will confront is the clergy sex abuse scandal: Bishop Carlos Felipe Jimenes Bello, a revered independence hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was secretly defrocked by the Vatican in 2020 for sexually abusing young boys.
There is no information on whether Mr Francis will mention Mr Belo, who is still revered in East Timor but has been barred by the Vatican from ever returning.
Mr. Francis has used his many foreign trips to send messages to China, whether direct telegrams of greetings when passing through Chinese airspace or indirect signals of respect, friendship and brotherhood to the Chinese people when in close proximity.
Mr. Francis’ visit to Singapore, where three-quarters of the population is ethnically Chinese and Mandarin is the official language, will provide him with another opportunity to reach out to Beijing, as the Vatican seeks better ties in the interest of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics.
“This is a faithful people who have suffered a lot and remained faithful,” Mr. Francis said in a recent interview with the Chinese province of his Jesuit denomination.
The visit comes a month before the Vatican is set to renew a landmark 2018 agreement on bishop nominations.
Just last week, the Vatican expressed its “satisfaction” that China had officially recognized Tianjin Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen, who, according to the Vatican, took up the episcopal office in 2019. The Holy See said China’s now official recognition of him under civil law is “a positive outcome of the dialogue established over the years between the Holy See and the Chinese government.”
But by reaching Singapore, a regional economic powerhouse that enjoys good ties with both China and the United States, Francis is also wading into a longstanding maritime dispute as China grows increasingly aggressive with its presence in the South China Sea.