ROME (AP) — Pope Francis will preside over an interfaith meeting at a mosque in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country in a ceremony that will bring together four nations. Asian visit in September It will be the longest and most complicated foreign trip of his pontificate.
The Vatican unveiled the itinerary for Pope Francis’ trip on Friday, which will take place from September 2 to 13 in Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The packed schedule makes it clear that the 87-year-old pontiff, who has struggled with health problems and increasingly dependent on a wheelchair, has no intention of slowing down.
After a day of rest upon his arrival in Jakarta on September 3, Francis embarked on a series of protocol visits to heads of state and government, speeches to diplomats and meetings with the clergy and public masses, as is his custom.
Francis will be the third pope to visit Indonesia, after Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II in 1989. About 87 percent of Indonesia’s 277 million people are Muslim, but the country is also home to the second-largest Christian population in Southeast Asia, after the Philippines, and the third-largest in Asia after the Philippines and China.
In Jakarta, he will chair an interfaith meeting at the capital’s Istiqlal Mosque, which is expected to be attended by leaders of Indonesia’s six officially recognised and protected religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.
Francis is also expected to pass through a tunnel, called the “Friendship Tunnel,” connecting the Grand Mosque to the neo-Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, built by Indonesian authorities in 2020.
As a result, the first leg of Francis’ four-country trip will likely place a strong emphasis on interfaith harmony and tolerance, a theme he has hammered home on several of his foreign visits. especially in the Gulf and other Muslim-majority countries.
In all four countries there are meetings with young people, poor and disabled people, elderly people and regular meetings of Francis with his fellow Jesuits.
The trip, originally scheduled for 2020, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At 11 days, it is the longest in Francis’ 11-year pontificate, exceeding by a few days some of his lengthy trips to the Americas and reminiscent of some of the grueling, round-the-world journeys of St. John Paul II.
This will bring the Argentine Jesuit to the world’s most populous predominantly Muslim nation, Indonesia, as well as one of the world’s newest countries, the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, where The Catholic Church exerts enormous influence.
According to the 2022 census, about 98.3% of its 1.34 million people are Catholic, and it is the Asian country with the highest proportion of Catholics after the Philippines.
Francis will be the second pope to visit East Timor after John Paul II in 1989, but the first since the country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.
In East Timor, Francis may also have to reckon with the legacy of independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo. The Nobel Peace Prize winner sanctioned by the Vatican in 2020 for sexually abusing young Timorese boys and is currently living in Portugal.
Francis had to cancel his last planned foreign visit – a quick trip to Dubai last year to attend the U.N. climate conference – because of a recurring case of bronchitis. He has appeared in relatively good shape in recent months, particularly on day trips to Italian cities and visits to Roman parishes.
But in recent years, with his mobility limited by damaged knee ligaments, he has generally stayed closer to home and limited his trips abroad to relatively short durations.
After returning to Rome in mid-September, he will have a four-day stay. visit to Belgium and Luxembourg before the end of the month, the only other overseas trip that has been confirmed for the year.
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Karmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
