Local church leaders recently announced that Pope Francis is set to visit the Philippines in January 2015.The specific details of the trip were not released except that the pontiff will be surely seeing victims of disasters particularly those affected by Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan).
Manila Archbishop Luis Tagle said the Pope had told him during a recent meeting at the tevangelization and spreading the faith. The head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Socrates Villegas said the Pope’s planned visit shows his deep concern for the Filipino people who have gone through devastating calamities.
In October, 2013 a 7.1-magnitude earthquake destroyed many historic churches and killed more than 200 people in central Philippines. A month later the region was struck by Super Typhoon Yolanda that left about 8,000 dead and millions homeless.
The 77-year-old Pope Francis became leader of the world’s Catholics after the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI last year. His visit would be the fourth by a pope to the Philippines, considered as Asia’s bastion of the Catholic faith where more than 80 percent of the population are Catholics.
