2023 will likely be a year of many trips for Pope Francis.
From January 31st to February 5th, the Pope will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan for a pilgrimage that was postponed from last July.
We also know that the Pope will be in Lisbon to attend World Youth Day in early August.
However, the rest of the Pope’s schedule is yet to be determined.
Possible papal trips will depend significantly on the Pope’s health. His last international pilgrimages were far less busy than usual and included several days to allow the Pope to rest. And, following his operation last July, the Pope is less able to be maintain the rigour of previous years.
Nevertheless, the Holy Father is active and willing to continue traveling.
In one of his latest interviews, Pope Francis hinted that he wants to go to Marseille for the meeting of Mediterranean bishops planned in the city. However, the Pope specified that, if this visit were to occur, he would only visit Marseille, and it would not be a papal trip to France.
The Pope has also said he wants to visit Hungary, confirming this in his audience with Hungarian President, Katalin Novak, last year. It is likely that this will occur in May 2023, and could include a visit to the Benedictine monastery of Pannonhalma. Already during the pontificate of John Paul II, the monastery, a place of ecumenical worship, had been identified as the site of a possible meeting between the Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow.
A papal trip to Lebanon is not confirmed either, but the Pope certainly wants to visit the Middle Eastern nation, and 2023 could be a good year for that to occur. However, the recent resignation of President Michel Aoun has complicated the socio-political situation in Lebanon, making it more difficult to organize a visit.
There are also longer trips that could occur this year. In 2017, Pope Francis announced he was thinking of going to India, but he ended up only visiting Myanmar and Bangladesh. In 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Pope Francis and officially invited him to the South East Asian country, a necessary step if the papal journey were to occur.
If the trip materializes, the Pope could travel from the capital New Delhi to Calcutta to pay homage to Mother Teresa again after remembering her in her hometown of Skopje in 2018.
The pandemic took any possibility of a trip to Indonesia, New Guinea, and East Timor off the table in 2020. This trip has remained a possibility, but seems difficult to achieve now.
Also, a trip to Moscow and Kyiv, another wish of Pope Francis, seems unlikely. The war in Ukraine has complicated any such visit, and, although Pope Francis has often called for an end to the conflict, Russia is yet to listen to his requests.
Pope Francis has also often made it known that he would be willing to visit North Korea if invited. However, no invitation has come from Pyongyang so far.
