Despite health challenges that led to a cancelled trip to Dubai for COP28, Pope Francis maintained an ambitious travel schedule in 2024 that saw him draw large crowds in Asia and make his first-ever visit to Corsica as well as visiting Belgium and Luxembourg. The now-88-year-old pontiff’s longest apostolic journey was the 12-day tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania in Sept., where thousands of faithful attended papal events.
In Indonesia, Francis visited the grounds of Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, where he joined Muslim leaders in discussing global challenges and signed a joint declaration condemning religious-based violence. “The path of inter-faith collaboration is essential to addressing global crises,” Francis told his audience. About 100,000 faithful later attended an outdoor Mass where the pope emphasized Catholic engagement in pluralistic societies.
In Papua New Guinea, Francis focused on Indigenous communities while blessing a new hospital for underserved populations. The pope’s message of hope reached its numerical peak in Timor-Leste, where an estimated 750,000 people – nearly two-thirds of the nation’s population – gathered for Mass in Dili.
September also brought some controversy during the pope’s visit to Belgium, where Prime Minister Alexander De Croo strongly criticized he pontiff’s comments on abortion.
During his in-flight press conference, the pope had called abortion “homicide” and referred to doctors who perform the procedure as “contract killers,” prompting De Croo to call such remarks “absolutely unacceptable.”
The dispute distracted from the actual focus of the Belgium visit: the 600th-anniversary celebrations of the Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve. Earlier in Luxembourg, Francis had challenged Catholics to evangelize an increasingly secular Europe, noting that “having wealth includes responsibility.” The papal travel year concluded on a historic note Dec. 15 in Corsica, where Francis became the first pope to visit the French Mediterra-nean island. His participation in a diocesan conference examining popular piety empha-sized the continued importance of local devotions in maintaining Catholic identity.