This month Pope Francis has planned two weeks on the move. He will visit Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Singapore from 2-13 September. The travel will be a heavy burden for the 87-year-old Pope. Many people ask why he sees travel as so important in his ministry. Some of us Australians may also ask why he brushes past the top end of Australia without dropping in.
THE POPE'S PLACE
To understand why he travels we need to understand the Pope’s place in the Catholic Church. He is the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St Peter and St Paul who spent time and were martyred there. As the successor of St Peter, he shares his role in the Church of ‘strengthening his brothers in living and spreading their faith in Jesus. Over the centuries this strengthening of faith has taken many forms – of gathering the Church together in times of dispute about what faith means, helping heal divisions in the Church, being a centre of communication and of preaching the Gospel, being a sign of unity in the Church, adapting Church law to different circumstances, and ensuring that the prayer and devotional life of the Church reflect the Gospel. Popes’ letters, preaching and teaching, holiness of life and concern for the universal Church as well as for the local church of Rome, have all helped to confirm the world’s bishops and through them the local churches in faith.
For much of the church’s history the Bishops of Rome did not travel far. Neither did most other people unless they were soldiers, pilgrims or fleeing from war and persecution. Bishops of Rome generally travelled only in times of war and of dispute with other rulers. Then they were forced to flee to other centres or were dragged there as prisoners. ln the 19th century the revolution and formation of Italy meant that the Pope ceased to be the ruler of the Papal States and won sympathy for being the ‘Prisoner of the Vatican’. Even after an agreement was made with the new Italian State, popes stayed home to be with their people in hard times. They confirmed their brothers in faith by staying steadfast.
TRAVELLING POPES
Pope John XXIII was the first pope to travel outside Rome in more than 70 years. Paul VI then travelled extensively, including to Australia in 1974. Pope John Paul II, however, made travelling a central part of his mission to encourage the Churches in their faith. He was a commanding presence with a gift for powerful public speaking and for such dramatic gestures as kissing the ground whenever he arrived in a nation. Particularly in nations where Catholics were discriminated against, such as in his native Poland, his presence stirred the desire for freedom.
Pope Francis has the same gift of going out of Rome to strengthen his brothers in the faith and to find gestures to match his and words in preaching the Gospel. He became famous for travelling simply, for leaving cavalcades to embrace crippled people waiting by the side of the road. And in a nation divided by its attitude to refugees, one of his earliest journeys was to the isle of Lampedusa to mourn the deaths of refugees who had died at sea. He strengthened his fellow Bishops in faith by reaching out fearlessly to the marginalised.
REACHING OUT
In his travel to Asia and Oceania, Pope Francis has shown a characteristic preference for the edges of the world over the more powerful centres. He famously took time to visit Mongolia with its few hundred Catholics. In this journey he has chosen to visit East Timor and Papua New Guinea. His journeys also reach out to Catholics living in cultures that where Catholics are small minority. He is able to meet rulers and leaders of other religions, join the people in large Masses, and groups of bishops and others who are central to the mission of the Church In this visit, for example, he will meet the political leaders of each nation, representatives of leaders of other religions in Indonesia and Singapore, different groups within the Church including the Jesuits of whom he was once a member, groups of young people who are the future of the Church, and people who are elderly and ill.
He preaches the Gospel through those he visits, through the warmth of his feeling for people, and through encouraging the local Catholic community.