Pope Francis’ trip to DR Congo is the first papal visit since John Paul II traveled there in 1985.
Pope Francis is visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan this week.
The 86-year-old head of the Catholic Church will begin his trip on Tuesday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa before heading to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on Friday.
The Vatican’s envoy to DR Congo, where Catholics make up about half the population, said the trip would remind the world not to ignore the decades-long conflict there.
An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced in DR Congo and 26 million face severe hunger, largely due to the impact of armed conflict between multiple rebel groups, according to the United Nations.
This will be Francis’ 40th trip abroad since he was elected supreme pontiff following the resignation of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI in 2013. During these trips, the Pope has visited 59 countries.
Pope Francis’ trip to DR Congo is the first visit by a pope since John Paul II traveled there in 1985. – at that time it was still known as Zaire.
The DRC is the second largest country in Africa and has about 90 million inhabitants. The Church manages about 40 percent of the country’s health institutions, and about 6 million children are taught in Catholic schools.
Countries visited by the Pope include:
America
- Brazil: July 2013
- Bolivia: July 2015
- Ecuador: July 2015
- Paradise: July
- United States: September 2015
- Cuba: September 2015, February 2016
- Mexico: February 2016
- Colombia: September 2017
- Chile: January 2018
- Peru: January 2018
- Panama: January 2019
- Canada: July 2022
Asia
- South Korea: August 2014
- Sri Lanka: January 2015
- Philippines: January 2015
- Armenia: June 2016
- Georgia: September 2016
- Azerbaijan: October 2016
- Myanmar: November 2017
- Bangladesh: November 2017
- Thailand: November 2019
- Japan: November 2019
- Kazakhstan: September 2022
Africa
- Kenya: November 2015
- Uganda: November 2015
- Central African Republic: November 2015
- Egypt: April 2017
- Morocco: March 2019
- Mozambique: September 2019
- Madagascar: September 2019
- Mauritius: September 2019
- Democratic Republic of the Congo: January 2023
- South Sudan: February 2023 (planned)
Europe
- Albania: September 2014
- France: November 2014
- Turkey: November 2014
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: June 2015
- Greece: April 2016
- Poland: July 2016
- Sweden: October 2016
- Portugal: May 2017
- Switzerland: June 2018
- Ireland: August 2018
- Estonia: September 2018
- Latvia: September 2018
- Lithuania: September 2018
- Bulgaria: May 2019
- North Macedonia: May 2019
- Romania: May 2019
- Hungary: September 2021
- Slovakia: September 2021
- Cyprus: December 2021
- Greece: December 2021
- Malta: April 2022
Middle East
- Israel: May 2014
- Jordan: May 2014
- Palestine: May 2014
- United Arab Emirates: February 2019
- Iraq: March 2019
- Bahrain: November 2022
