Pope Francis is making the longest, farthest and most challenging trip of his pontificate when he goes to Asia and Oceania this week. He will clock 32,814 kilometers (20,390 miles) by air during his Sept. 2-13 visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
FILE-- Pope Francis waves as he leaves after his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican, Aug. 28, 2024. FILE - The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, popularly known as the Jakarta Cathedral is illuminated during dusk in Jakarta, Indonesia , Aug. 8, 2024. FILE - A billboard welcoming Pope Francis stands above a mural honoring Bishop Belo and three others as national heroes in Dili, East Timor , Aug. 14, 2024. This Oct.
By retracing John Paul’s steps, Francis is reinforcing the importance that Asia has for the Catholic Church, since it’s one of the few places where the church is growing in terms of baptized faithful and religious vocations. And he is highlighting that the complex region also embodies some of his core priorities as pope – an emphasis on interreligious and intercultural dialogue, care for the environment and insistence on the spiritual component of economic development.
Few places are as remote, peripheral and poverty-wracked as Vanimo, a northern coastal town on the main island of New Guinea. There Francis will meet with missionaries from his native Argentina who are working to bring Christianity to a largely tribal people who still practice pagan traditions alongside the Catholic faith.
When John Paul visited East Timor in 1989, he sought to console its overwhelmingly Catholic population who had suffered under Indonesia’s brutal and bloody occupation for 15 years already. It would take another decade for the United Nations to organize a referendum on Timor’s independence, after which Indonesia responded with a scorched-earth campaign that left the former Portuguese colony devastated. East Timor emerged as an independent country in 2002, but still bears the trauma and scars of an occupation that left as many as 200,000 people dead — nearly a quarter of the population.
Another legacy that will confront Francis is that of the clergy sexual abuse scandal: Revered independence hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo was, be they direct telegrams of greetings when he flies through Chinese airspace or more indirect gestures of esteem, friendship and fraternity to the Chinese people when nearby.
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