DPA
Sri Lankan Catholics welcomed the recent announcement of a visit by Pope Francis planned for January, a church official said yesterday.
“We are preparing for the visit,” said Reverend Cyril Gamini, spokesman for the country’s Catholic Church.
The pope was to visit from January 13 to 15, although the details of the schedule were yet to be finalised, said Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, archbishop of Colombo, in an earlier
statement.
The country’s Catholic Church and government have appealed for the pope to visit after fighting between government troops and Tamil rebels ended in 2009.
Pope Francis himself, only a few months before returning from the trip to Brazil for the World Youth Day last summer, explained: “I received an invitation to go to Sri Lanka and also in the Philippines. But I must go to Asia. Because Pope Benedict did not have time to go to Asia, and it is important”.
It would be the third papal visit after Pope John Paul II in 1995 and Pope Paul VI in 1977.
Sri Lanka has 6% of Catholics, of a population of 20mn.