A Journalist’s Journey: What It’s Like to Travel With the Pope

For nearly two weeks in September, I traveled with 87-year-old Pope Francis as he visited some of the world’s most remote and diverse island countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania with stops in Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Singapore and Indonesia.

As a journalist tagging along on the papal plane, you can expect certain things: sleep deprivation, endless security protocols, and those fleeting moments where you can catch a glimpse of a place — if only through the cracked window of the press corps van in the papal motorcade. What you do not expect is how this type of trip can change you as you encounter deep faith in far-flung places.

In Papua New Guinea, we were welcomed by the beating drums of some of the country’s Indigenous tribes who have embraced the Christian faith thanks to the work of many missionaries who ventured deep into the country’s uncharted jungle rainforest.

One of the first people I interviewed was a Papuan chief from the Huli tribe, Mudiya Kepanga. Decked out in an ornate feathered headdress with a quill running through his nose, Mudiya described how his “heart was pumping” when he met the Pope and how happy he was to receive a papal blessing.

At the Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians in Port Moresby, I met Agnes Michael, a Catholic from Papua’s Western Highlands adorned with her tribe’s signature intricate red-and-white face paint and dozens of speckled seashell necklaces. Agnes waited for hours at the gate of the shrine with her daughter Rita for the Pope’s arrival. She told me that it felt amazing when the Holy Father finally arrived at sunset.

Pope Francis himself ventured to “the peripheries” of Papua New Guinea by visiting the remote northern jungle outpost of Vanimo, only accessible by boat or plane. The Pope arrived with the help of the Royal Australian Air Force in a C-130 military aircraft filled with toys, medicine and other humanitarian aid for the local population.

Unforgettable East Timor

One of the most unforgettable stops on our journey was the small Catholic island-nation of East Timor. From the window of the papal plane, the country’s clear waters and pristine coral-reef beaches appeared as a tropical paradise. Tales of the dangerous saltwater crocodiles that have overrun its beaches and the illegal martial arts gangs that roam its streets only increased my sense of anticipation to discover this place, which has the distinction of being one of the least visited countries in the world.

With a population that is nearly 98% Roman Catholic, East Timor calls itself “the most Catholic country in the world after Vatican City,” and as soon as we landed, the country showed us why.

Massive crowds lined the streets of the Timorese capital of Dili for miles, waving Vatican flags and cheering as if they had just seen the Beatles as the papal motorcade passed by.

An estimated 600,000 people — nearly half of the country’s entire population — turned up for the papal Mass. East Timor’s government declared the three days of Pope Francis’ visit as a national holiday. With most of the shops and streets closed, many people trekked on foot to the Mass in Tasitolu park, where the throngs of people waited for long hours in the scorching island sun under yellow-and-white Vatican-themed umbrellas.

East Timor, located between Australia and Indonesia, fought long and hard for its independence from Muslim-majority Indonesia, which it finally gained in 2002 with the help of U.N. peacekeeping forces who remained in the country until as recently as 2012.

Years of violence and instability left the young country deeply impoverished and lacking infrastructure. More than 40% of the Timorese population lives below the poverty line.

Sisters from the Hospitaler Sisters of Mercy I spoke with told me that when they arrived in Timor in 2011, they were shocked to discover that young girls who lived in the mountains had to walk three to four hours to attend school. The sisters, who had come to the impoverished island to care for the sick and malnourished children, also opened a dormitory enabling girls to pursue their education without needing to walk hours each day.

Throughout the Pope’s time on the island, Francis praised East Timor’s “culture of life,” commending the country’s high birthrate and large families.

“I have been thinking a lot about what is the best thing about Timor,” Pope Francis said in Spanish at the end of Mass. “The best thing about this place is the smiles of its children.”

Over the course of 12 days, the Pope, who will turn 88 years old in December and frequently uses a wheelchair, traveled a total of 20,000 miles on seven flights, yet he did not miss a beat. Pope Francis stuck to every bit of his arduous schedule; and if he was feeling tired, he did not show it.

Indonesia’s Cathedral

When we touched down in the Indonesian capital, we were instantly hit by the thick humidity that hangs over Jakarta’s crowded streets. Entering the city’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, the Muslim call to prayer could be heard next door from the largest mosque in Southeast Asia.

Indonesian Catholics, though representing just 3% of Indonesia’s Muslim-majority population, were some of the loudest and, dare I say, rowdiest crowds we encountered on our journey. Catholics filled up not one but two sports stadiums in Jakarta for the papal Mass with more than 100,000 people.

Again and again, Catholics told me how they harmoniously live and work side by side with their Muslim neighbors. Baso Darmawan, a Catholic from the outskirts of the capital, told me that he personally knows many Indonesians who have converted from Islam to Catholicism, including his own father. He added that he uses the daily Muslim call to prayer as a reminder to pray the Angelus and Liturgy of the Hours.

Singapore’s True Riches

For the final leg of the journey, the Pope visited the multicultural city-state of Singapore, one of the wealthiest countries in the region, with a higher gross domestic product per capita than the United States.

What stuck out in Singapore was not the soaring skyscrapers but the faces of the elderly and disabled whom the Pope went to greet at St. Theresa’s Nursing Home, like 55-year-old Gabriel who shared with a big toothy smile from his wheelchair about his dream of someday making a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Lourdes.

At Singapore’s National Stadium, I met a couple from Vietnam who flew to Singapore for the Pope’s final Mass of the trip.

Communicating through a Vietnamese translator app on a cellphone, the husband explained how he longs for the day when a pope will someday be able to visit his native home.

During the papal trip, we crossed the globe, touched down on islands few of us ever thought we would see, and encountered a dizzying range of humanity. Yet the thing that stuck with me was a line from Psalm 97 that the Pope quoted in one of his first speeches, “Laetentur insulae multae,” meaning, “Let the many islands rejoice.”

Each of the countries we visited was unlike the last. But joy was the consistent feeling we encountered at every stop. Whether in the rhythmic chants of tribal dances, the smiles of cheering children, or the solemn hymns in stadium Masses with tens of thousands of worshippers, the islands did, indeed, rejoice.