Pope Francis begins visit to Thailand as faithful jostle for selfies

Pope Francis walks next to his cousin, Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, upon his arrival at a military air terminal in Bangkok, on Nov 20, 2019. Sister Sivori will be his translator in Thailand. PHOTO: REUTERS
People wait to greet Pope Francis as he arrives at a military air terminal in Bangkok on Nov 20, 2019. PHOTO: REUTERS

BANGKOK (REUTERS, AFP) - Pope Francis arrived in Thailand on Wednesday (Nov 20) to meet its small but devoted Catholic minority on a seven-day Asian trip that will include a family reunion in Bangkok and take his anti-nuclear message to Japan.

Waiting for a glimpse of the pontiff, excited Catholics thronged around the Vatican's Bangkok embassy and St Louis Hospital to take selfies.

"Once in a lifetime, I want to see him and be able receive prayer from him," said 60-year-old Orawan Thongjamroon.

The Pope's plane touched down outside Bangkok around midday and he descended to a red-carpet airport welcome from church leaders for a visit that coincides with the 350th anniversary of the first papal mission in Siam, the former name of Thailand.

"Dear friends in Thailand and Japan, before we meet, let us pray together that these days may be rich in grace and joy," read a message on the pontiff's official Twitter account before he left the Vatican.

This will be the Pope's third trip to Asia - and his 32nd abroad - taking him to two Buddhist-majority countries with minority Catholic populations both evangelised by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century.

Pope Francis is the first pontiff in nearly four decades to visit Thailand where the nearly 400,000-strong Catholic community makes up a little more than 0.5 per cent of the population. The last visit from a pontiff to Thailand was in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

Catholics are a tiny minority in mostly Buddhist Thailand, accounting for less than 2 per cent of the population.

On Thursday, Pope Francis will meet the 20th Supreme Patriarch Somdej Phra Maha Muneewong - the head of Thailand's Buddhist clergy - at a temple.

He will also have meetings with Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

His translator in Thailand will be his cousin and childhood friend, Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, 77, who has worked in Thai schools for more than 50 years.

His day will end with a holy mass at the national stadium, where tens of thousands are expected to attend from many walks of life, including ethnic Karen Christians from northern Thailand, Vietnamese Catholic refugees living in Bangkok, and faithful from all over South-east Asia.

On Friday, the Pope's day will be filled meeting priests and bishops of Thailand, and it will end with a youth-oriented mass at a cathedral.

On Saturday, he will fly to Japan and stop in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities devastated when the United States dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II in 1945.

More than 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima, while the port city of Nagasaki suffered a death toll of 74,000.

The Pope, who years ago had hoped to be a missionary in Japan, has made strong calls for the ban of the "immoral" use of nuclear weapons.

Since Pope Francis' election six years ago, he has made two trips to Asia, visiting the Philippines and Sri Lanka in 2014, followed by Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2017.

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