Pope Francis shows little sign of slowing in 2022 - Our Sunday ...

Pope Francis shows little
sign of slowing in 2022
Although surgery last July slowed Pope Francis at times in
2021, items already on the papal agenda for 2022 point to a
resumption of the 85-year-old pontiff’s typically demanding
pace. The activities include foreign travels, major meetings
and conferences, and probably a consistory for the formal
installation of new cardinals, thought likely to be early in
the new year.

Francis appears largely recovered from the three-hour
operation last July 4 in which a large section of his colon
was removed to eliminate severe constriction resulting from
diverticulitis. After 11 days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital,
where he occupied the same suite that Pope St. John Paul II
used during his hospital stays, the pope returned to the
Vatican and there gradually resumed his work schedule.

But there were obvious limits at first. Environment is one of
the Pope’s signature issues, and he had hoped to go to
Glasgow, Scotland, in November for the COP26 international
climate conference. But apparently not feeling up to the trip
just yet, he sent Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro
Parolin instead.

New cardinals expected

Pope Francis leads a consistory
                             for the creation of 13 new
                             cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica
                             at the Vatican Oct. 5, 2019. (CNS
                             photo/Vatican Media)

Up to 2021, Francis had convened a consistory for new
cardinals yearly during his pontificate, but last year there
was none. A consistory now seems probable in the months ahead,
however — perhaps before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which
in 2022 will be March 2.

Currently, there are 121 cardinals under the age of 80 and
therefore eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.
That is one more than the number set by Pope John Paul II. But
by mid-April — and barring new appointments before then — the
total will have fallen to 117. At least two current Vatican
agency heads are in line for red hats, and Francis likes to
name cardinals from places that haven’t had them before, so it
will be a surprise if any Americans make the next list.

A continued focus on migrants

Pope Francis holds the hand
                                 of a man during a visit with
                                 refugees at the government-
                                 run     Reception     and
                                 Identification Center in
                                 Mytilene, Greece, Dec. 5,
                                 2021.   (CNS   photo/Paul
                                 Haring)

Having once again highlighted the plight of refugees and
migrants during his pre-Christmas visit to Cyprus and Greece,
the pope on Feb. 27 will go to Florence for a conference on
that issue involving bishops and mayors from countries of the
Mediterranean region. A similar meeting took place in Bari,
Italy, in February 2020.

While in Florence, Francis is expected to meet with a group of
migrants. In one of his Sunday Angelus talks last October, the
pope complained that some migrants are forced to live in “real
concentration camps” and urged that people fleeing “unsafe”
countries have “dignified living conditions, alternatives to
detention, regular migration routes, and access to asylum.”

Travel plans
For the pope, as well as other international travelers, the

pandemic introduced a new element of uncertainty into foreign
travel. Only last March did he make his first trip outside
Italy — to Iraq — since the arrival of the coronavirus.
Discussing his 2022 travel plans in October with an Argentine
news agency, he indicated that, circumstances permitting, he
has several trips now in view 2022.

Prominent on his list were Papua New Guinea and East Timor —
places he planned to visit in late 2020 until virus-imposed
restrictions ruled that out. Other potential destinations in
2022, he said, are the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Hungary — the latter a country whose capital, Budapest, he
visited last September for the closing Mass of the
International Eucharistic Congress. No dates have yet been
announced for any of these trips.

Pope Francis greets Bishop
William Terrence McGrattan of
Calgary, Alberta, vice president
of   the   Canadian    bishops’
conference, at the Vatican Dec.
9, 2021. The leadership of the
Canadian conference said a
delegation of Indigenous people
plan to visit the pope next
spring and hope the pope can
visit Canada after that. (CNS
photo/Vatican Media)

Also in the year ahead, Francis may travel to Canada on a
visit intended to heal relations with Canadian indigenous
peoples offended by mistreatment of indigenous children in
government residential schools operated by religious orders.
More than half the estimated 150,000 children were in
Catholic-run institutions. Other schools were staffed and
operated by the United Church of Canada and the Presbyterian
and Anglican churches. The last of the residential schools,
which at one time numbered 139, closed in the 1990s.

Last October, the Vatican announced that Francis had accepted
an invitation to visit Canada extended by the Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops. No date for the visit has been
announced at the time this was written. A group of Canadian
indigenous leaders had planned to meet with Pope Francis at
the Vatican on Dec. 20, but that meeting was canceled in early
December over “uncertainty and potential health risks
surrounding international travel amid the recent spread of the
Omicron variant,” according to a statement released by the
Canadian bishops.

Other priorities
Besides travel, the papal agenda includes much else in 2022.

Next May 15, Francis will canonize seven new saints, including
Charles de Foucauld, Indian martyr Devasahayam Pillai and five
Italian and French founders of religious communities.

Pope   Francis   celebrates   the
                             canonization Mass for five new
                             saints in St. Peter’s Square at
                             the Vatican Oct. 13, 2019. (CNS
                             photo/Paul Haring)

Blessed Charles de Foucauld was a French army officer,
Trappist monk and hermit. Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1858,
he lived a playboy’s life as a young man but experienced a
profound religious conversion, was ordained a priest in 1901
and spent his last years living at a remote site in North
Africa, where he was killed by bandits in 1916.

Blessed Devasahayam was born in 1712 to upper-caste Hindu
parents in India. He became a soldier of the local Hindu ruler
but converted to Christianity and was tortured and killed for
refusing to repudiate the Faith.

The pope will welcome and address the World Meeting of
Families, scheduled to take place in Rome from June 23-27 with
the theme “Family Love: A Vocation and a Path to Holiness.”
International family congresses are held at different sites
every three years, with the most recent in Dublin in 2018.

Along with all this, Francis in 2022 is sure to continue
promoting the worldwide exercise in “synodality” —
participatory, consultative decision-making — that he has
directed take place in parishes and dioceses around the globe
leading up to a bishops’ synod in Rome in late 2023.

Suggesting the scope of the papal agenda are the monthly
prayer intentions designated for the year ahead by the Pope’s
Worldwide Prayer Network (previously, the Apostleship of
Prayer). These range from “For a Christian response to
bioethical challenges” in March to “For small businesses” in
August and “For the abolition of the death penalty” in
September.

Russell Shaw is a contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor.