Pope embarks on longest, farthest and most challenging trip to Asia

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

If any evidence were needed to underscore that Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Asia and Oceania is the longest, farthest and most challenging of his pontificate, it’s that he’s bringing along his secretaries to help him navigate the four-country program while keeping up with work back home.
Francis will clock 20,390 miles by air during his Sept. 2-13 visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, far surpassing any of his previous 44 foreign trips and notching one of the longest papal trips ever, in terms of both days on the road and distances traveled.
That’s no small feat for a pope who turns 88 in December, uses a wheelchair, lost part of a lung to a respiratory infection as a young man and had to cancel his last foreign trip at the last minute (to Dubai in November to participate in the U.N. climate conference) on doctors’ orders.
But Francis is pushing ahead with this trip, originally planned for 2020 but postponed because of Covid-19. He’s bringing along his medical team of a doctor and two nurses and taking the usual health precautions on the ground. But in a novelty, he’s adding his personal secretaries into the traditional Vatican delegation of cardinals, bishops and security.
The long trip recalls the globetrotting travels of St. John Paul II, who visited all four destinations during his quarter-century pontificate, though East Timor was an occupied part of Indonesia at the time of his landmark 1989 trip.
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.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope ... rcna169193

[gherkin]

Title must be changed. I am too immature to see the truncated version of this title when I look at the board index page.

[gherkin]

Ah, OK, now it shows "RE: Pope embarks on longest..." This is much less funny than the previous display, but still preferable.

[Kage_ar]

Had a boss/pastor/friend who was quite the globetrotter. Every year for his vacation, he traveled to his home country and then did a side trip somewhere else in this big world. One of my job duties was to book his travel.

In Jan of 2020 we booked his trip home to see his mom and family, his side trip was to the last place in this world that he had on his "bucket list". He was more excited about this trip than he had been for prior years, like a kid! On the return from that trip, he planned a stop over in Texas to visit his sister. There, he had a massive heart attack and entered into Eternal Life. I believe he somehow knew that this would be his last earthly journey.

I believe that the Holy Father knows this journey is important, that visiting the people is something he wants to scratch off his "bucket list".

[anawim]

I never realized until this trip that E. Timor is 98% Catholic.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

I never realized until this trip that E. Timor is 98% Catholic.

Yes as a former Portuguese colony like the Phillipines/Spain.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Indonesia on Friday after celebrating Mass before an overflow crowd of 100,000, a final celebration before heading to Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his 11-day journey through Southeast Asia and Oceania. The 87-year-old pope had no official events Friday beyond a farewell ceremony and the six-hour flight to Port Moresby, giving him something of a break after a packed three-day program in Jakarta.
The visit culminated with a jubilant Mass on Thursday afternoon before a crowd that filled two sports stadiums and overflowed into a parking lot.
https://apnews.com/article/asia-indones ... 3b63ec471e

[Doom]

Had a boss/pastor/friend who was quite the globetrotter. Every year for his vacation, he traveled to his home country and then did a side trip somewhere else in this big world. One of my job duties was to book his travel.

In Jan of 2020 we booked his trip home to see his mom and family, his side trip was to the last place in this world that he had on his "bucket list". He was more excited about this trip than he had been for prior years, like a kid! On the return from that trip, he planned a stop over in Texas to visit his sister. There, he had a massive heart attack and entered into Eternal Life. I believe he somehow knew that this would be his last earthly journey.

I believe that the Holy Father knows this journey is important, that visiting the people is something he wants to scratch off his "bucket list".

So are you suggesting this might be a valedictory trip of sorts? That thought has not occurred to me, I know the Holy Father is in poor health so I was surprised to hear he was traveling at all, but if he knows his time is short he may be taking advantage of the opportunity to visit a few places he has always wanted to see.

[Doom]

Had a boss/pastor/friend who was quite the globetrotter. Every year for his vacation, he traveled to his home country and then did a side trip somewhere else in this big world. One of my job duties was to book his travel.

In Jan of 2020 we booked his trip home to see his mom and family, his side trip was to the last place in this world that he had on his "bucket list". He was more excited about this trip than he had been for prior years, like a kid! On the return from that trip, he planned a stop over in Texas to visit his sister. There, he had a massive heart attack and entered into Eternal Life. I believe he somehow knew that this would be his last earthly journey.

I believe that the Holy Father knows this journey is important, that visiting the people is something he wants to scratch off his "bucket list".

So are you suggesting this might be a valedictory trip of sorts? That thought has not occurred to me, I know the Holy Father is in poor health so I was surprised to hear he was traveling at all, but if he knows his time is short he may be taking advantage of the opportunity to visit a few places he has always wanted to see.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

When Pope Francis touches down in the East Timorese capital of Dili on Monday he will be landing in a totally different nation to the one visited by his predecessor. The last papal visit to Dili was in 1989, when Pope John Paul II arrived in territory then occupied by Indonesia, gifting East Timor's fledgling independence movement an historic boost and rare prominence on the global stage. "It was an opportunity for us to express our right to fight for our liberation," recalled Father Francisco Barreto, who was among the crowd when protesters unfurled banners calling for independence in front of the world's TV cameras for the first time.
Now as one of the world's newest and predominantly Catholic nations prepares for a second papal visit, the 72-year-old priest said East Timor's struggle is about building the impoverished, half-island nation. "This visit is grace from God," Barreto said from Dili, where he works as a hospital and prison chaplain. "It will bring new life, new energy, for our fight for the progress of this nation... politics and the economy are not healthy."

[Kage_ar]

Had a boss/pastor/friend who was quite the globetrotter. Every year for his vacation, he traveled to his home country and then did a side trip somewhere else in this big world. One of my job duties was to book his travel.

In Jan of 2020 we booked his trip home to see his mom and family, his side trip was to the last place in this world that he had on his "bucket list". He was more excited about this trip than he had been for prior years, like a kid! On the return from that trip, he planned a stop over in Texas to visit his sister. There, he had a massive heart attack and entered into Eternal Life. I believe he somehow knew that this would be his last earthly journey.

I believe that the Holy Father knows this journey is important, that visiting the people is something he wants to scratch off his "bucket list".

So are you suggesting this might be a valedictory trip of sorts? That thought has not occurred to me, I know the Holy Father is in poor health so I was surprised to hear he was traveling at all, but if he knows his time is short he may be taking advantage of the opportunity to visit a few places he has always wanted to see.

Just a bit of a gut feeling, spidey senses.

[Doom]

I am currently planning a trip to Rome in November of next year for the Jubilee. I wonder if Francis will still be alive then or if we will have a new Pope, but maybe he is not quite that bad off.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

Around half of Timor-Leste’s 1.3 million people – 97 per cent of whom are Catholic – attended an outdoor Mass celebrated by Pope Francis outside the capital Dili yesterday. The crowd sheltered from the sun under yellow and white umbrellas waiting for the Mass at the Taci Tolu protected coastal area about five miles from the city, the same site where John Paul II celebrated Mass when his visited in 1989 during the East Timorese independence struggle.
Most of the hundreds of thousands present had walked there from across the island, while tens of thousands of others who could not get into the site lined the roads there, some dancing in traditional costumes. At the end of the Mass, the Archbishop of Dili, Cardinal Virgilio da Silva, thanked Pope Francis for his visit which, he said, had played an important role in supporting the development of East Timor and demonstrated “the Church’s commitment to serving the poor”.

[anawim]

I am currently planning a trip to Rome in November of next year for the Jubilee. I wonder if Francis will still be alive then or if we will have a new Pope, but maybe he is not quite that bad off.

You may end up being there for the election of a new pope.

[Doom]

I doubt the trip will be quite so fortuitously planned!

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

Pope Francis has arrived in Singapore to begin the fourth and final leg of his 12-day Apostolic Journey in Asia and Oceania – the longest of his pontificate.
There was a palpable sense of excitement among Singapore’s residents, young and old, who were making final preparations for the Holy Father’s arrival.
Sr Theresa Seow Lee Huang FDCC, the vice chairperson of the Archdiocese and Council for Interreligious Dialogue shared her hope that Pope Francis’ visit will be a source of renewal for interreligious dialogue in Singapore. “We hope that with the visit, and bringing all the young people from the different religions together, even after the Holy Father has left, it begins a momentum really to pull the young people to work for harmony and peace,” said the Canossian sister.