The Pope has a full traveling schedule ahead of him. He's getting ready to travel to South Korea in mid August, then Albania on September 21st. But the Pope and Vatican are already looking towards next year. In fact, he talked about his travel plans on his flight back from the Holy Land.
POPE FRANCIS
'In regards to Asia, we have two trips planned. The first to Korea for Asian Youth Day. Then in January a two day trip to Sri Lanka and then to the Philippines, to the area that was hit by the tsunami.â?
On Tuesday the Vatican issued the dates in which the Pope will travel to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. From January 12th to the 15th he will be in Sri Lanka to carry out his Apostolic Trip and from the 15th to the 19th he will visit the Philippines.
The dynamics of both these trips will be interesting. In Sri Lanka, Christians are a minority. They make up about 6 percent of the population, which breaks down to about 1.2 million people.
The Philippines on the other hand, has a Christian majority. Roughly 80 percent of the population is Catholic which accounts for about 75 million people. It's the third country with the most Catholics after Brazil and Mexico.
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