Pope Francis has officially announced that he will visit the US in September 2015.
On Monday, the Pope made the announcement at Vatican City’s Synod Hall, during an international conference on the complementarity of man and woman. “I wish to confirm, if God wills it, that in September of 2015 I will go to Philadelphia for the Eighth World Meeting of Families,” he remarked.
The World Meeting of Families will take place in Philadelphia from Sept. 22-27. A global event founded by St. John Paul II takes place every three years and seeks to support and strengthen Catholic families.
Even before the Pope’s big announcement, the world meeting was expected to draw in thousands, possibly even a million people, according to the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput. Archbishop Chaput had previously hinted at the papal visit in 2015, but said that it had not been officially confirmed.
Earlier in March, a Pennsylvania delegation including Gov. Tom Corbett and Mayor Michael Nutter visited the Vatican to help encourage the Pope to visit the US.
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, head of the Holy See’s permanent observer mission to the United Nations, also said that “if [Pope Francis] comes to Philadelphia, he will come to New York.”
The 70th anniversary of the UN’s founding would be “the ideal time” for a papal visit, the archbishop said on Nov. 13. Next year also marks the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1965 visit to the UN, the first such visit from a Pope.
Pope Francis has already expressed interest in visiting the US for the family conference, and has received invitations from President Obama, the US Congress and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, as well as from Mexico.
However, despite hopes for a papal visit to New York and possibly Washington during his US trip, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, told journalists shortly after the announcement that as of now other stops are not confirmed.
“[The Pope] didn’t say anything about any other steps or moments in his trip to America,” Father Lombardi said. “He guaranteed his presence to the organizers of the World Day for Families, but as for the rest, I have no concrete information.”
The World Meeting of Families will take place shortly before the October 2015 meeting of the Synod of Bishops on the Family, which will discuss the mission role of the family in the Catholic Church and in the world. Featuring keynote speakers such as Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Dr. Juan Francisco de la Guardia Brin, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the theme of the meeting is “Love is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.”
At the last World Meeting in Milan, Italy, in 2012, over 1 million people from 153 nations attended a papal Mass with Pope Benedict XVI.
The preliminary Synod held at the Vatican last October brought up widely-disputed issues of creating a more welcome stance towards gays and allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion. After two weeks of fierce debate, the bishops at the Synod were so sharply divided that they failed to reach a consensus to present to Pope Francis, but agreed to a more “pastoral approach” to ministering to Catholic families.
Pope Francis has visited the Holy Land and Albania as well as South Korea. He has accepted an undated invitation to visit Mexico, and will visit France and Turkey in November, and Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January 2015. He will return to France for a longer visit in 2015.
The Philadelphia meeting next September will mark the first time the event will be held in the US.
(With reports from Catholic News Agency)
