pontificate

Parts of the Pope's trip, which was originally scheduled in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, will retrace the steps of St John Paul II, who also visited the four nations during his 27-year pontificate.

Early in his pontificate, he made four long-distance trips to the region: to South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Japan.

Francis has made reaching out to migrants a priority of his pontificate and has called for receiving countries, within their means, to welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants.

In that case, he probably would have been better off just having the trials and allowing himself and his surrogates time to pontificate and demagogue about his persecution and persuade dubious supporters who might be having second thoughts about voting for him..

He has been hospitalized two other times during his pontificate for abdominal surgery, including one 10-day stay in 2021 to remove a part of his large intestine.