Pope heads to Southeast Asia in ambitious trip

The pontiff will fly overnight and arrive on Tuesday in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, before heading to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.

The distance covered – some 32,000 kilometres – and the time difference of up to eight hours would be enough to make it a testing trip.

But Francis – for whom spreading the faith is a priority – will also deliver 16 speeches and hold several giant masses as he seeks to rally the region’s growing Catholic community.

The trip – his 45th abroad – was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to the Covid pandemic. And in those four years, the pontiff’s health has suffered.

The Argentine now routinely uses a wheelchair to move around, underwent hernia surgery last year and has been plagued by respiratory issues.

He has not travelled abroad since visiting Marseille in France in September 2023, having cancelled a planned address at United Nations climate talks in Dubai two months later.

But in recent weeks the pontiff has appeared in good spirits, and a Vatican source said that beyond the doctor and nurse who always travel with him, no special medical arrangements had been planned for this trip.

The four countries on the tour are very different, but the pope will seek to bolster ties with each of their Catholic communities and their governments, observers say.

The goal is to “strengthen the sovereignty of the pope and the role of the Holy See with local Catholics, to create communion”, said Michel Chambon, a theologian and anthropologist at the National University of Singapore.

“If the Holy See wants to show its universality, it must rub shoulders with Asian traditions which, increasingly, play a major role in the international order,” he said.

Francis is also expected to address