Vatican City, 22 October, 2021 / 8:45 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis said in an interview published Friday, October 22, that he has several international trips in mind for 2022, as he picks up pace following a slower schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking to Télam, Argentina’s national news agency, Pope Francis said that he would like to visit “the Congo and Hungary” next year, though he admitted the ideas have not yet reached the planning stages.
Pope Francis made a stop of less than a day in Hungary’s capital city, Budapest, on Sept. 12, for the final Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress, before making a longer visit to Slovakia.
In March, he went to Iraq, his first international trip since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
In the Oct. 22 interview, the pope said that in 2022 he would like to make trips to Papua New Guinea and East Timor, which had been planned for late 2020 before they were canceled because of the pandemic.