Pope Francis on September 4, 2023 before his departure from Ulaanbaator, Mongolia, where he stayed for four days. (Photo by SIMONE RISOLUTI/AFP)
By Loup Besmond de Senneville (aboard the papal plane
Sep 6 2023
Pope Francis has admitted that he may no longer have the physical stamina to continue making long-distance journeys to various places around the world.
“To tell you the truth, traveling is not as easy for me today as it was at the beginning,” he told journalists during an inflight press conference on Monday while making the 10-hour return trip to Rome from Mongolia.
The Jesuit pope’s September 1-4 visit to the vast Central Asian nation, which is in a time-zone six hours ahead of Italy, was the 43rd international journey of his decade-long pontificate. But the visibly tired Francis, who will be 87 in December, said he was now facing greater “limitations” to continued long-distance travel, such as his difficulty in walking. “We’ll see,” he said.
After the trip to Marseille, scheduled for September 22-23, there are no further trips on the papal agenda. Several sources have indicated that a papal visit to Kosovo is currently being looked at. The pope, in fact, did make mention of a hypothetical future trip “to a small European country”, but without saying which one. “We’re in the process of seeing if we can do it,” he told the journalists on his plane back to the Eternal City from Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital.
Francis did not even mention three other possible trips that have been under consideration in recent months.
Last April, the pope said he wanted to visit India in 2024.
In previous months, he also expressed a desire to travel to his native Argentina, and to tour Southeast Asia. In fact, papal visits to Indonesia and East Timor (among possible other countries in the region) were scheduled for 2020, but had to be put off because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A Vietnam visit? “It will surely be John XXIV who does it”
The pope, who underwent surgery last March for an abdominal hernia, was also asked about a possible trip to Vietnam. He smiled and hinted that such a visit would probably have to be carried out by his successor. “If I don’t go, it will surely be John XXIV who does,” Francis said. “But there will surely be one.”
The pope’s comments are bound to rekindle speculation about the possibility of another papal renunciation. However, Francis has changed his views on the matter in recent months. Since the end of 2022, when he presented a possible resignation as one “door” among others to mark the end of his pontificate, he has since indicated – following the death of Benedict XVI – that his Bavarian predecessor’s decision to relinquish the papacy should remain an exception.
Visible fatigue during this press conference, which lasted some 40 minutes, did not prevent Pope Francis from returning to highly sensitive subjects such as relations between the Church and China. After a trip to a country landlocked between Russia and the Middle Kingdom, and marked by the presence of a large number of Chinese faithful, he sent a new message to the communist authorities in Beijing.
“We need to understand each other better, so that Chinese citizens won’t think that the Church does not accept their culture and values, nor that the Church is dependent on another foreign power,” he said.
“I have great respect for the Chinese people,” continued the pope, while reiterating his “admiration” for the inhabitants of the world’s most populous country.
The comment echoed statements he made in Mongolia, especially when he called on Chinese Catholics to be “good Christians and good citizens”. This is a way of reassuring Beijing that the Catholic Church has no desire to meddle in domestic politics, despite the fact that on two recent occasions China violated its agreement with the Vatican on the appointment of bishops.
The Synod is neither a parliament nor “political chatter”
Francis was also asked about next month’s much anticipated Synod assembly on the future of the Church.
He warned against any political turn this “ecclesial” process might take, which must not be equated with “political chatter” or a parliament. “One thing we have to preserve is the synodal climate. This is not a television program where we talk about everything,” he insisted.
He then justified the secrecy that will cover discussions among the participants, and the fact that communication will be entrusted to a “commission” responsible for drafting daily press releases.
This decision is likely to raise many questions among those Catholics who have actively participated in the preparatory work for this Synod assembly, which was launched in October 2021, and who wish to follow the Roman proceedings.
Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/francis-says-his-long-distance-traveling-days-may-be-over/18284
