With over 30 hours of flight, 30,000 km, an eight-hour time difference, a series of meetings and masses, this 12-day trip should represent a significant physical challenge for the 87-year-old head of the Catholic Church. For Pope Francis—who has not traveled abroad in a year—has shown increasingly fragile health over the past few months, forcing him to cancel several commitments.

Appearing tired during the Easter festivities, he had canceled his participation in a key Holy Week event and delegated the reading of his speeches, citing bronchitis.

The head of the Catholic Church will begin this long journey with a visit to Jakarta from September 3 to 6 before going to Port-Moresby and Vanimo in Papua New Guinea from September 6 to 9, then to Dili, the capital of East Timor from September 9 to 11, and finally to Singapore from September 11 to 13, announced the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni.

This trip, which has been under study for several months, was initially planned for September 2020 but had to be canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rumors had also been circulating about a possible visit to Vietnam, where this week the "foreign minister" of the Holy See had gone, but it has not been confirmed at this time. This visit is representative of the "peripheries" dear to the Argentine Jesuit, who has always favored countries plagued by conflicts and turmoil or not predominantly Catholic.

Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, said on Friday that the visit was of "significant importance... not only for Catholics but also for all religious communities."

" It should also strengthen the message of tolerance, unity, and global peace," the foreign ministry rejoiced in a statement.

According to the American research center Pew, some 242 million Indonesians, or 87% of the population, are Muslims while 29 million are Christians, of which 8.5 million are Catholics.

Papua New Guinea, for its part, has more than nine million Christians, almost the entire population. However, Protestantism is the majority religion in this country, which otherwise remains steeped in animist traditions. No pope has visited since John Paul II in 1995.

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has already made 44 trips abroad, with the most recent being to Marseille in the south of France in September 2023.

Jorge Bergoglio, who has been using a wheelchair for two years, has recently suffered from knee, hip, and colon problems, and has respiratory weaknesses.

Despite a major abdomen operation in 2023, the pope, who never takes vacations, continues to maintain a hectic pace at the Vatican, where he can meet with a dozen people in one morning.

But in recent months, he has had to make concessions, even canceling his trip to Dubai for COP28 in December due to bronchitis. For 2024, he has mentioned a trip to Belgium and a proposed visit to Argentina. He also has three trips planned in Italy, with the first to Venice on April 28.

In 11 years of his pontificate, the pope has already visited Asia six times, including the last time in Mongolia in September 2023, but never to Oceania.

AFP