VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis may go to South Korea in August, 20 years after Pope John Paul II last visited the Korean peninsula.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Wednesday that Francis has been invited to attend a meeting of young Asian Catholics in August and that a trip is “under study.”
Asian Youth Day, the regional version of the church’s global youth festival, is scheduled for Aug. 10-17 in Daejeon.
Lombardi said the Vatican was also considering another papal trip to Asia, but not this year, to the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Francis told reporters last summer en route home from World Youth Day in Brazil that he wanted to go to Asia precisely because Pope Benedict XVI never managed to get to the continent during his eight years as pope, aside from a quick trip to Turkey in 2006.