Pope visit ‘stronger’ than Yolanda

MANILA, May 28, 2014 — It’s official: Pope Francis is coming to the Philippines.

On his flight back to Rome from Holy Land on May 27, the pope confirmed his plan to visit the country next year.

He said plans are underway for him to visit Sri Lanka and Philippines on a single trip in January 2015.

“With regard to Asia, two trips are planned: the one to South Korea, for the meeting of young Asians, and then, next January, a two-day trip to Sri Lanka and then on to the Philippines, to the area affected by the typhoon,” Francis said in a media conference.

Details of his visit, however, have not yet been revealed.

Although many wanted to witness a papal visit in an earlier schedule than the expected 2016 trip to Cebu City for an international Catholic gathering, this latest development did not come as a surprise to everybody.

As someone who has been leading the Church in reaching out to the “peripheries”, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle said the recent calamities beckoned for him to come sooner.

Defining character

Tagle, who just came from Rome for the Synod of Families, said the pope ‘want to come close’ to the victims of the disasters.

“I think one purpose of the visit of the Holy Father is to come close to the people who suffered from the recent typhoon and the earthquake,” Tagle said in an earlier interview with Catholic News Service, published on May 19.

“We will see how that could be done. But I think, he would want that to be a defining character of his trip,” he said.

Tagle added, “I have said his coming will be stronger than the typhoon, but in a positive way.”

In January, the pontiff sent his emissary to visit some areas devastated by the world’s strongest typhoon to make a landfall in recent history.

In a Mass in Palo town, in Leyte, Cardinal Robert Sarah, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, raised hopes among survivors that they could be getting a visit from the pope.

“I go now because I might be going there also,” Sarah said recalling what the pope told him, drawing cheers and applause from those attending the Mass.

The Vatican also extended more assistance for the rehabilitation efforts of local dioceses struck by the typhoon and even to those hit by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Bohol last October.

No official word

Local Church officials, meanwhile, said there is no official announcement yet about the much-anticipated papal trip.

“The Secretariat has not yet received any official communication from the Vatican or Nunciature,” said Fr. Marvin Mejia, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines secretary general.

Henrietta de Villa, a consultor to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, said there is a “standing invitation” for the pontiff to visit the country, “but there’s no official response yet”.

“We are all hoping that he could come this coming year, but the one who would announce it is the Nunciature or the CBCP president or Cardinal Tagle,” De Villa said.

Tagle earlier said that he has high confidence that the pope will visit the country, particularly, the areas in the Visayas affected by recent calamities, in 2015.

“Cardinal Tagle is very hopeful because he often travel to the Vatican because the pope gave him much work. He has the ear of the pope so we hope [the visit pushes through],” added De Villa.

“We are hopeful he could come because I think the pope wants to come sooner than 2016 and there’s a standing invitation (for the pope) to come anytime,” she added.

Pope Francis will be the third pope to visit the Philippines, after Pope Paul VI (1970) and now St. John Paul II (1981 and 1995). (Roy Lagarde)