The head of the world’s largest religion, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church confirmed his visit to the Philippines this coming January 2015 but the Vatican did not gave a definite date of his trip to Asia’s largest Roman Catholic population.
The confirmation was made by the 77-year-old Pope Francis himself while speaking Italian as he told reporters in Vatican, aside from noting his scheduled trip to South Korea for the sixth Asian Youth Day scheduled this August 2014.
The Pope was quoted as saying (translated in English) “Then next January a trip of two days to Sri Lanka and in the Philippines and in the zone that was hit by the tsunami,” the Pope said.
The first non-European Pope, his excellency Pope Francis already expressed his intentions earlier of visiting the Philippine archipelago to personally condole with thousands of survivors of the Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).
The Pope also mentioned the Philippines during his first Christmas as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Aside from the intentions of the Pope to visit the Philippines, Archbishop Giuseppe Pinto, Papal Nuncio to the Philippines also visited the survivors of the super typhoon in Tacloban City last Christmas Day in 2013.
