Church in the Philippines eagerly awaits further details of papal visit

Local Catholic Church officials in Philippines eagerly look forward to a papal visit to the Philippines although there has not been any official announcement yet about the much-anticipated trip.

“The Secretariat has not yet received any official communication from the Vatican or Nunciature,” said Msgr. Marvin Mejia, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines secretary general. The communications office of Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle also made a similar statement, though it expressed a desire for such a visit. “No official word from Vatican yet,” said Peachy Yamsuan, communications chief of the Archdiocese of Manila.

Media reports on Tuesday quoted Pope Francis who was speaking to the journalists on board the flight to Rome returning from the Holy Land. He had said that a two day visit to Sri Lanka and then to the Philippines, especially the zone ravaged by the natural calamities is being planned for January next year without mentioning definite dates and details.

Henrietta de Villa, a consultor to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, said there is a “standing invitation” for the pontiff to visit the country, “but there’s no official response yet”. “We are all hoping that he could come this coming year, but the one who would announce it is the nunciature or the CBCP president or Cardinal Tagle,” De Villa said.

Tagle earlier said that he has high confidence that the pope will visit the country, particularly, the areas in the Visayas affected by recent calamities, in 2015. Last year, the Filipino bishops also invited Pope Francis to join the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu City in 2016.

Fr Giovanni Re who is regional superior of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in the Philippines, spoke to AsiaNews and said “A visit by Pope Francis to the Philippines will become another important moment for this country, as past papal visits did."