Pope Francis will take his first overseas trip of the year and the longest of his 11-year papacy, traveling to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore from Sept. 2-13, the Vatican said on Friday.
The Asia and Oceania trip has been on the papal agenda for some time, but there had been doubts on whether the 87-year-old pontiff would embark on it given his increasing frailty and a record of skipping engagements due to health problems.
Francis is now scheduled to be in Jakarta between Sept. 3-6, Port Moresby and Vanimo between Sept. 6-9, Dili Sept. 9-11 and Singapore Sept. 11-13, his spokesman said in a statement. In recent months, the pope has been suffering on and off from what the Vatican has described as a cold, bronchitis and influenza, and he needs a wheelchair or a cane to move around due to a knee ailment.
The Argentine pope, the first from the so-called Global South, has made reaching out to Asia one of the priorities of his pontificate, during which the Vatican has struck a historic, yet contested, deal with China on bishop appointments.
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