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Speculation Grows Over Potential Visit by Pope Francis to U.S.
By Liam Moloney And Deborah Ball
ROME—Will he or won't he? The intense speculation about whether Pope Francis will visit the U.S. next year inched toward an answer Friday, after Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said the pontiff will come to the city for the World Meeting of Families slated for September 2015. "Pope Francis has told me that he is coming," said the archbishop at a mass in North Dakota on Thursday. In March, Archbishop Chaput met with the pope at the Vatican, along with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett. The cleric's comments, first reported by the Catholic News Service, ricocheted instantly Friday, underlining the fervor surrounding a possible visit by Pope Francis to the U.S. The Vatican, which typically confirms papal visits about six months before they are due to take place, tried to contain the enthusiasm Friday. It issued a statement confirming that the pope has "indicated his willingness to participate" at the family meeting, but said that nothing had been formalized yet. During his 16-month papacy, Pope Francis has seen no shortage of invitations to the U.S., which would be his first visit as pope. President Barack Obama invited the pope to the White House during their meeting at the Vatican in March. The pope replied, in Spanish, "certainly"—a response that instantly set the U.S. Catholic media abuzz House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who is a Catholic, invited Pope Francis to address a joint session of Congress, while United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in May invited the pontiff during a Vatican meeting. New York City Bill de Blasio extended yet another invite when he met with Vatican officials during his vacation in Italy this week. A trip by Pope Francis, who enjoys high popularity in the U.S., would be a blockbuster visit. The Argentina-born pontiff received a hero's welcome during his trip last July to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and he would surely receive a similarly warm reception from the U.S.'s large Hispanic population. Some hope that the pope would also tack a visit to Mexico onto a trip to the U.S., although the Vatican also declined to confirm any such plans Friday. Pope Francis has made just two overseas trips so far, first to Brazil and then to the Middle East in May. In August, he will travel to South Korea—the first pontiff to visit Asia since the 1990s—and will visit the Philippines and Sri Lanka in January. That trip is hotly awaited by the Philippines' Catholic population, one of the largest in Asia. Vatican experts say the pope, 77, appears reluctant to travel much, perhaps judging that the huge global interest in him and his papacy obviates a need to make the sort of far-flung visits that his predecessor Pope John Paul II relished, but that exhausted Pope Benedict XVI.
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