Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco;

born Jorge Mario Bergoglio,17 December 1936) is

the reigning pope of the Catholic Church, in which

capacity he is both Bishop of Rome and

absolute sovereign of the Vatican City State.

The head of the world’s largest religion,

Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic

Church confirmed his visit to the

Philippines this coming January 2015 but

the Vatican did not gave a definite date of

his trip to Asia’s largest Roman Catholic

population.

The confirmation was made by the 77-year-

old Pope Francis himself while speaking

Italian as he told reporters in Vatican, aside

from noting his scheduled trip to South Korea

for the sixth Asian Youth Day scheduled this

August 2014.

The Pope was quoted as saying (translated in English)

“Then next January a trip of two days to Sri Lanka and

in the Philippines and in the zone that was hit by the

tsunami,” the Pope said.

The first non-European Pope, his excellency Pope

Francis already expressed his intentions earlier of visiting

the Philippine archipelago to personally condole with

thousands of survivors of the Super Typhoon Yolanda

(Haiyan).

The Pope also mentioned the Philippines during his first

Christmas as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Aside from the intentions of the Pope to visit the

Philippines, Archbishop Giuseppe Pinto, Papal Nuncio

to the Philippines also visited the survivors of the super

typhoon in Tacloban City last Christmas Day in 2013.

http://philnews.ph/2014/05/27/pope-francis-confirmed-visit-to-philippines-in-january-2015/