Visit – The head of the Catholic Church traveled to the far reaches of this Oceanian country in a historic trip
A visit to the “peripheries” of the world. Pope Francis made a historic trip to the jungles of Papua New Guinea on Sunday. In Vanimo, a rural and remote community, Pope Francis chose to meet with some 20,000 people from different provinces on Sunday.
Among them, hundreds have walked, sometimes for several days from the other end of the island to meet the Argentine Jesuit. “I am Catholic, and I wanted to see the head of the Church,” confides Joachim Mombigo. In the crowd, families, often poor, hundreds of barefoot children. Groups of young people, sitting on the ground for long hours, display the red and black flag of their country or a photo of the Bishop of Rome. Steven Nati, 53, hopes for a cure. “I have many problems. I came so that the Pope blesses me, so that I can be cured,” explains this resident of Vanimo, leaning on a cane.
The Pope of the Peripheries
A port city of 10,000 souls on the border with Indonesia, Vanimo alone symbolises the “peripheries” dear to the first South American pope in history, who defined himself as coming “from the ends of the earth” when he was elected in 2013. With this trip, the announcement of which surprised even Rome, Pope Francis (…) - 20minutes
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