Pope to embark on four-country Asia tour, the longest and farthest of his papal trips

Francis will travel 32,814 kilometres by air during his 2-13 September visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore, far surpassing any of his previous 44 foreign trips and making it one of the longest papal visits ever, both in terms of days on the road and distances travelled.

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 UN 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 to 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 Timor-Leste 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 baptised faithful and religious vocations.

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.

Here is a look at the trip and some of the issues that are likely to come up, with the Vatican’s relations