ROME – Despite being almost 90 years old and suffering from the various ailments that come with ageing, Pope Francis has touted some ambitious travel plans for this year, including potential visits to Polynesia and a long-awaited return trip to Argentina.
Though there is nothing yet on the calendar for this spring, the Pope in various recent interviews has announced plans to visit Oceania, Belgium and Argentina in the second half of what is shaping up to be a busy year.
Though more trips could still be announced, the ones Francis has already spoken about are significant in terms of his own pastoral priorities and given the political backdrop against which they would take place.
Last year Pope Francis maintained a busy travel schedule despite two hospital stays, several colds and limited mobility, making five international trips out of six that had been announced.
He visited the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in late January and early February of last year, and after a brief hospital stay for bronchitis at the end of March, he made a trip to Hungary in April.
Pope Francis then traveled to Portugal in August for World Youth Day; he visited Mongolia in early September; and he made an overnight visit to Marseille later that month. He was scheduled to make a December 1-3 trip to Dubai for the COP28 United Nations climate summit but had to cancel due to a respiratory infection.
While life in Italy traditionally slows down over the summer, that appears to be when things will pick up at the Vatican, with his trip to Oceania expected to happen sometime in August, and his visit to Belgium expected in September, just before the second part of his controversial Synod of Bishops on Synodality begins in October.
Francis has said he is exploring the possibility of visiting Argentina in the latter half of the year, meaning it would likely take place after the October synod, but before the inauguration of the Jubilee of Hope on 24 December.
Here are further details about the proposed visits:
Belgium
Pope Francis first revealed plans to visit Belgium in 2024 in an interview with Mexican television station Nmas last year. He confirmed those plans in a recent interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa.
The last pope to visit Belgium was Saint Pope John Paul II in 1995, when he traveled there to beatify Father Damien of Molokai, a Belgian missionary belonging to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who spent his life serving a leper colony in Hawaii before finally succumbing to the disease himself in 1889.
A decade prior, John Paul II in 1985 had conducted a more extensive tour of Belgium, making stops in Leuven, Namur, Beauraing, Antwerp, Banneux, Liège and Mechelen.
Pope Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, who often criticised the growth of secularism in Europe, never visited Belgium, which is seen as among the most secular nations of the European Union.
Belgium, for example, is one of just three EU countries where euthanasia has been fully legalised, having decriminalised the practice in 2002. In 2014 they issued an amendment to that law making euthanasia, under certain conditions, legally possible for all minors with no minimum age limit.
In a 13 December statement, the Belgian bishops’ conference confirmed that an invitation had been sent to the Pope, saying they and the rectors of the country’s two Catholic universities, KU Leuven and UC Louvain, had invited Pope Francis to visit in late September for the 600th anniversary of KU Leuven during the 2024-2025 academic year.
The bishops welcomed Pope Francis’s confirmation of his intention to attend the anniversary celebrations, and said the exact date and schedule are still being worked out, but that the visit would likely last 1-2 days.
Oceania
By now an international papal trip or two over the summer has become an expected disruption of vacation plans for Vatican-watchers, and this year is no exception.
Speaking to La Stampa in an interview published 29 January, Pope Francis said his summer Oceania tour includes stops in East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, with the trip currently being scheduled for some time in August.
Francis was originally supposed to make the tour of Oceania, visiting the same countries, in the summer of 2020, however, that trip was cancelled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said the government had received an “official note that Pope Francis will visit Papua New Guinea in August” for a 3-day visit, and that officials are working closely with the apostolic nunciature to iron out the details. A team has apparently already been assembled to begin the organizational process.
Bishop Anthony Randazzo of Broken Bay, Australia, in his capacity as president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences Oceania released a statement after the Pope’s interview, saying he expects the Pope to receive a warm welcome in Papua New Guinea.
“Papua New Guinea has around two million Catholics or about 26 per cent of the population. However, I am sure all religious leaders, churches, and government leaders look forward to providing a warm, traditional cultural welcome,” the bishop said.
Randazzo noted that Francis’s visit would mark only the second pope visit to the country, some 30 years after Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1995.
Expanding from the West Coast of Australia to the vast array of Pacific Islands scattered across both the northern and southern hemispheres, Oceania contains “many peoples and cultures, lands and waterways united in one confession of faith in Jesus Christ,” Randazzo said.
“Working together is not merely a choice, it is an essential way for ministry, life and mission. I am sure this is something the Holy Father will experience when he visits PNG,” he added.
Although the Pope’s full itinerary for the Oceania tour has not yet been released, the Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, Father Victor Roche, has confirmed that Pope Francis intends to make a 3-day visit to Papua New Guinea, beginning with Port Moresby, the nation’s capital. Pope Francis is also expected to visit another coastal city in the north of the country.
Pope Francis, 87, will be the second pope to visit Papua New Guinea, after Pope John Paul II made visits in 1984 and in 1995. John Paul II also visited both Indonesia and East Timor in 1989, some 13 years prior to East Timor’s independence.
In 2022, Pope Francis named Virgílio do Carmo da Silva, the archbishop of Dili in East Timor, a cardinal, giving him a red hat in August of that year.
The trip to Oceania will mark Pope Francis’ first visit to Oceania, and it will be the longest foreign trip so far during his nearly 11-year pontificate. It also demonstrates the careful attention Pope Francis is paying to a region heavily impacted by climate change, which has been a key agenda item for the Francis throughout his papacy.
His decision not to stop in Australia is also in keeping with his desire to give priority to smaller, more peripheral nations.
Argentina
If Pope Francis does visit Argentina this year as intended, it would be one of the most significant trips of his entire papacy, as it would mark his first return trip to his native country, where opinion of him was and continues to be sharply divided, since his election to the papacy in 2013.
It would also hold additional significance given the shocking things Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, said about the pontiff during the election cycle. Prior to his election in November, Milei called the Pope an “imbecile” and a “communist”, among other things, including more derogatory terminology.
Since taking office, though, Milei has taken on a different tone, sending a letter of thanks to Pope Francis for the pontiff’s phone call congratulating him on his election and for the presence of the papal nuncio to Argentina at his installation as president.
In that letter, Milei referred to drastic economic measures he hoped to take to tackle inflation and poverty, thanking Pope Francis for “your wise advice and wishes for courage and wisdom for me, so necessary to take up the challenge of guiding the destiny of our country and our fellow citizens.”
“We’re aware that these decisions can deepen inequalities, with our top priority being to protect our most vulnerable citizens,” Milei wrote, saying his government “appreciated the collaboration of the Catholic Church, whose social work is invaluable.”
Milei also wrote: “As President of the Argentine nation, I believe that your journey will bring fruits of pacification and brotherhood [for] all Argentinians, who long to overcome our divisions and confrontations.”
In his interview with La Stampa, Pope Francis said he would meet with Milei while the latter is in Rome to attend the canonisation of Argentine nun María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, colloquially known as “Mama Antula”, on 11 February.
The Pope said Milei had requested the meeting, but that the exact date and time had not yet been decided.
Regarding his potential visit to Argentina this year, Francis said the trip is “in parenthesis” and that organisation for it had not yet begun.
Photo: An ITA Airways plane with Pope Francis onboard takes off at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, as the Pope departs for a three-day trip to Kazakhstan, 13 September 2022. (Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images)
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