Pope Francis, 87, takes climate message to South-east Asia on 12-day trip
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VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis leaves on Sept 2 for a visit to four island nations across South-east Asia, an ambitious trip to urge global action on climate change that may test the strength of the 87-year-old head of the global Roman Catholic Church.
Over 12 days from Sept 2 to 13, the Pope will travel nearly 33,000km to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. It is the longest trip yet by the pontiff, who now regularly uses a wheelchair because of knee and back pain.
He pushed hard for the 2015 Paris climate agreement and aides say he wants to continue his appeals to confront the dangers of a rapidly warming world, and especially to support the most vulnerable. In the countries on his tour, these dangers include rising sea levels and increasingly severe and unpredictable heatwaves and typhoons.
Jakarta, the Indonesian capital where the trip begins, has experienced disastrous flooding in recent years and is slowly sinking, prompting the government to build a new $32 billion (S$41.6 billion) capital on Borneo island.
The Pope is scheduled to headline more than 40 events during the trip, and some observers say that beyond his specific itinerary, he wants to show he is still capable of leading the 1.4 billion-member Church, despite his age and bouts of ill health.
“It is a show of strength for Pope Francis,” said Professor Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who has followed the papacy closely.
What does the Pope hope to achieve?
Prof Faggioli, from Villanova University in Philadelphia, noted that no pope has toured abroad at such an age. Benedict XVI, Pope Francis’ immediate predecessor, resigned at 85. Pope John Paul II, who had Parkinson’s disease, made his last visit abroad at 84.
The tour will be Pope Francis’ 45th foreign trip since his election in March 2013. He speaks often about reaching out to people or groups on the margins of society, and has prioritised trips to places never before visited by a pope, or where Roman Catholics are a small minority.
“Francis has almost drawn a new map of the Church,” said Prof Faggioli. “It’s global Catholicism now, a Church that it is not just more globally extensive, but truly globalised.”
Also on the agenda is a renewed push for Catholic-Muslim dialogue, long a priority for Pope Francis who, in 2019, became the first pontiff to visit the Arabian peninsula.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has about 280 million inhabitants, only about 3 per cent of them Catholic. Pope Francis will take part in an inter-faith meeting at Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in South-east Asia.
Political science associate professor Jeremy Menchik of Boston University, who has written extensively on Indonesia’s politics, said it was in a “golden age” of inter-faith dialogue, noting that the mosque sits opposite Jakarta’s Roman Catholic cathedral.
“This is a moment where you have pluralism rather than polemics,” he said.
The Pope will land in Jakarta at about midday on Sept 3, and will depart for Papua New Guinea three days later. To allow him to rest after a night flight of more than 13 hours, he will have no public activities on Sept 3, apart from a brief official welcome at the airport.
Why has the Pope chosen Asia?
In each of the four countries, the Pope will hold official meetings with the political authorities, diplomats and local Catholics. He will also lead outdoor celebrations of the Catholic Mass in all four countries.
The Church’s officials broadly see Asia as fertile ground to expand the faith, which has experienced decline in Western countries.
Ms Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Programme at the Wilson Centre, a Washington think-tank, said Pope Francis’ visit, despite his health concerns, “speaks volumes about the strategic importance of Asia for the Church”.
Papua New Guinea, with an official population of about nine million, has some 2.5 million Catholics, the Vatican says. East Timor, with a population of 1.3 million, is nearly 96 per cent Catholic, while Singapore counts about 210,000 Catholics among its 5.92 million people, according to the Vatican. REUTERS
