Pope Francis greets journalists as he boards a flight to Edmonton International Airport on July 24, 2022. File photo by Vincenzo Pinto/EPA-EFE
Sept. 1 (UPI) — Pope Francis will embark on an 11-day trip starting Tuesday to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
The 87-year-old pope’s longest journey of his pontificate will span 20,000 miles. It will be his 45th trip since he became the pontiff in 2013, including Canada in 2022.
The trip was planned for September 2020 but canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
His last trip outside Italy was Luxembourg and Belgium from Sept 26-29.
Francis’ trip will “focus heavily on interreligious dialogue, ethnic harmony, care for creation, concern for immigrants and gratitude for the work of missionaries and the church’s contribution to education and health care,” according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
It will include numerous events in the largest majority-Muslim country in the world: Indonesia. Francis will be the third pope to visit Indonesia after St. Paul IV and St. John Paul II.
He will leave Rome’s Fiumicino International Airport in the early evening. The plane will cross over the Middle East and India en route to Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia, which is about 7.5% Protestant and 3% Catholic.
He will attend a welcome ceremony outside the Istana Merdeka Presidential Palace before the pope visits with President Joko Widodo.
On Friday, Francis will fly 2,916 miles to Papua New Guinea’s capital of Port Moresby, making him the second pope to visit after St. John Paul II, who visited twice.
More than 98% of Papua New Guinea citizens identify as Christian.
He is scheduled to visit local ministries that care for street children and persons.
The pope will meet with Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, before presiding over Sunday Mass in Port Moresby’s Sir John Guise Stadium.
In his third flight next Sunday, the pope will travel 616 miles to Vanimo, a city in the northwesternmost province of Papua New Guinea.
He then will travel back to the capital city.
On Sept. 9, the pope will travel 1,601 to the small country of East Timor, which has a population that is more than 97% Catholic. His most prominent archbishop Francis was made a cardinal in 2022.
In Dili, the country’s capital, Francis will visit children with disabilities. He will give a speech at the Presidential Palace, and preside over Mass in the Esplanade of Tasitolu over two days.
The pope’s final stop before returning to Rome, 1,640 miles, will be the island of Singapore. He will meet President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Sept. 12 before presiding over Mass in Singapore’s Sports Hub National Stadium, the third stadium Mass of the trip.
He will make the 6,000-mile journey back to Italy on a chartered Singapore Airlines flight scheduled to land in Rome at 6:25 p.m. Sept. 13.