JAKARTA – Pope Francis left Indonesia for Papua New Guinea Friday on the second leg of an arduous 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific, after delivering a message of religious unity in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The 87-year-old appeared fit and smiling during his three-day visit despite a hectic schedule and intense heat, presiding over a mass on Thursday of more than 80,000 people at a football stadium.
A formal leaving ceremony with an honor guard was held at Jakarta’s international airport, where the papal plane took off for Papua New Guinean capital Port Moresby shortly after 1030 am local time.
He will land there in the evening and his official schedule had no other events planned for the rest of the day.
Thousands of Indonesians waited outside the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Jakarta, shouting and trying to catch a glimpse of the pontiff as he left for the airport.
In the Indonesian capital Francis also signed a declaration with the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque calling for action against religiously inspired violence and climate change.
He will stay until September 9 in Papua New Guinea, the multi-ethnic Pacific country where the majority of the population is Christian, mostly Protestant.
The former Australian colony of nine million inhabitants, visited by John Paul II in 1984 and 1995, is regularly plagued by tribal violence, and in January saw deadly riots in the wake of anti-government protests against wage cuts.
Francis could also renew calls for greater protection of the environment, in a country that has recorded extensive deforestation in recent decades and has been hit by natural disasters.
On a one-day trip to Vanimo, a northwest Papua New Guinean town of 10,000, he is expected to focus on the spread of Christianity through evangelism.
On Monday he will travel to East Timor and then Singapore, where he will wrap up the longest and farthest tour of his 11-year papacy.
