Pope Francis says his India trip is distinct possibility

Mangalore Today News Network

Rome, Oct 04, 2016: Pope Francis has said that he is planning to visit Portugal, India, and Bangladesh in 2017.

The pope revealed his travel plans during a lengthy press conference aboard the papal flight back to Rome Oct. 2 after a weekend visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan.  The trip to Portugal, Francis said, would likely be brief and only to Fatima, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the famous apparition of Mary, May 13.

The pontiff said the India and Bangladesh trip is "quasi-sure."  He also said he is hoping to visit Africa but is unsure about which country as "it depends on the political situations and wars there."

He also said he is still considering a trip to Colombia following the historic peace agreement between the government and FARC rebels there, but wanted to wait until everything was "locked-up" or "when everything is sure, sure, sure" for the success of the peace deal.

Father Mauricio Rueda Beltz, papal trip planner, and Greg Burke, the new Vatican spokesman, were present at the 50-minute conference.  Other than his upcoming trips abroad, the Pope was asked about the US election campaign. He advised U.S. Catholics voting in November’s presidential election to study the proposals of the candidates well, to pray about it, and then "choose in conscience".

If Pope Francis visits India, it would be the fourth papal visit to India and he would be the third pope to visit the country.  Pope Paul VI had visited what was then Bombay in 1964 for the International Eucharistic Congress. In 1986, Pope John Paul II visited India on a 10-day trip that covered 14 cities across the country, Mangaluru too was one stopping poit.  In November 1999, Pope John Paul II again visited India - this time on a short visit to New Delhi, which was met with protests from right-wing Hindu groups and adverse media commentaries.

In March this year, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India officials had said that they have invited the Pope to India and also asked Prime Minister Modi to formally invite the Pope. The Pope is both the leader of the Catholic Church and the head of the state of Vatican City, and needs invitations both from the Church and the government of a country to contemplate visiting it, according to papal protocol.

Pope Francis announced on  Oct 2, Sunday he would “almost certainly” visit India and Bangladesh in 2017, as he wrapped up a three-day tour in the Caucasus and headed home to Rome. Asked on board the papal plane what his plans for the coming year were, the Argentine pope confirmed he would join the big annual pilgrimage to Fatima in Portugal next year.   According to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to three young shepherds six times over the course of the year 1917, the first time on May 13. The sanctuary will mark the centenary of the apparitions next year.

Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI was the third pope to make the pilgrimage to Fatima in 2010, after Paul VI in 1967 and John Paul II who visited Fatima three times in 1982, 1991 and 2000.  Francis also said he would “almost certainly” visit India and Bangladesh, though he did not specify a date.

He then said he intended to visit an African nation, though he did not specify which it would be, adding that the choice would depend on the political climate.

The pontiff, who took the papal name Francis in homage to the famous Christian friar and his devotion to the downtrodden, has already visited a record 16 nations since March 2013, favouring nations outside the world’s more typical centres of attention.  “One understands reality better and sees oneself more clearly from the periphery than in the centre. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t visit big countries like Portugal or France, I don’t know,” he said.