Pope's Asia trip to address poverty,
dialogue, climate change
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[January 10, 2015]
By Shihar Aneez and Philip Pullella
COLOMBO/VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope
Francis returns to Asia for the second time in less than six months,
traveling to Sri Lanka and the Philippines in coming days to underscore
his concern for inter-religious dialogue, poverty and the environment.
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Security will be a main issue in both countries, particularly in
the Philippines, Asia's only majority Catholic country, where up to
six million people are expected to attend an outdoor Mass on Jan.
18.
Up to 40,000 police, troops and reservists will take part in what
military chief General Gregorio Catapang has called the country's
biggest ever security operation.
"There will be soldiers rappelling up and down helicopters to rescue
the pope in case he will be pinned down by a sea of people. We may
airlift or use naval boats to bring the pope to safety if
necessary," he said.
When Pope John Paul visited Manila in 1995, security perimeters were
breached and he had to be taken by helicopter to a Mass site because
his car could not get through a sea of some 5 million people.
One theme of the Jan. 12-19 trip will be climate change. During his
stay in the Philippines he will visit Tacloban, where Typhoon Haiyan
killed 6,300 people in 2013.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Jan/10/images/ads/current/Hallies_sda_010615.png) Sri Lanka is among the Asian countries experts say will see sea
level rises likely to displace people and adversely affect tourism
and fisheries.
The Vatican says Francis, who is preparing an encyclical on the
environment, will speak about the issue several times.
While Pope John Paul made a number of trips to Asia - visiting both
countries in 1995 - Francis' immediate predecessor Benedict, who
resigned in 2013, made none to a region the Vatican sees as a
potential growth area.
"We have to recover the presence of a pope in this preponderant area
of humanity," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said. Only
about 3 percent of people in the region are Catholic.
"This continent in many ways represents a frontier for the Church,"
said Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Italian Jesuit magazine
Civilta Cattolica. "Inter-religious dialogue is tested every day and
young Churches there are growing".
SURPRISE ELECTION
The 78-year-old arrives on Tuesday morning in the Sri Lankan
capital, Colombo, days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa lost his
bid for a third term, ending a decade of rule that critics say had
become authoritarian and marred by nepotism and corruption.
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Lombardi said he hoped the surprise election result in the former
British colony would not give rise to any "inconveniences that will
affect the serenity and tranquillity of the trip".
The main purpose of the three-day stop in Sri Lanka is to canonise
Joseph Vaz, a Catholic priest credited with rebuilding the Church
there in the 17th and 18th centuries after Dutch occupiers imposed
Calvinism as the official religion.
The Indian Ocean island nation is about 70 percent Buddhist, 13
percent Hindu, 10 percent Muslim and only about 7 percent Catholic.
Francis will stress the need for worldwide inter-religious dialogue,
and, speaking after the recent attacks in France, again condemn the
concept of violence in God's name.
He will also preach a message of reconciliation during a visit to
Madhu, in the north that was the center of a 26-year civil war that
ended with the defeat of ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009.
Vatican officials say that despite its minority status, the Church
in Sri Lanka can help reconciliation because it includes members of
both ethnic groups - Sinhalese and Tamil.
Francis arrives on Thursday in the Philippines, where more than 80
percent of people are Catholic.
One main topic in the former Spanish colony will be the effect of
immigration on the family. The search for jobs outside the country -
mostly in domestic work - has put strains on many families.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Jan/10/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png)
(writing by Philip Pullella, additional reporting by Manuel Mogato
and Rosemarie Francisco in Manila and Shihar Aneez in Colombo;
Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Robert Birsel)
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