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May 25, 2023By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis could attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Ecuador before traveling to another Latin American country, said the archbishop of Quito, Ecuador.
"We think that if the pope goes next year to a Latin American country he hasn't visited yet, which are few, he could make a stop in Quito," Archbishop Alfredo Espinoza Mateus of Quito told journalists at the Vatican May 24. "Everything depends on the pope's health, without a doubt."
The archbishop invited Pope Francis to Ecuador during a brief meeting after the pope's May 24 general audience at the Vatican. The pope also blessed and signed a dedication on a large Book of the Gospels that will travel throughout Ecuador leading up to the congress.
The next Latin American trip on the pope's radar could be to his native Argentina. In April, the pope told the Argentinian newspaper La Nación that he wanted to travel to Argentina in 2024, and that he wanted to announce the visit early so the decision to travel there would not seem tied to the results of the country's presidential election, which is scheduled for October 2023.
Pope Francis has not returned to Argentina since he was elected pope in 2013.
Archbishop Espinoza confirmed that Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso invited the pope to Ecuador when the two met at the Vatican in January. The archbishop said that the organizing committee for the congress has insisted on the pope's attendance in its conversations with Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute for the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The archbishop noted the pope's visit would be "very important" to Ecuador as political instability and violence grip the country, which is about 80% Catholic. Ecuador's president dissolved the country's congress May 17 in the face of impeachment proceedings, and its national homicide rate, strongly linked to an increase in drug trafficking, reached its highest point in decades in 2022.
"The people are very hopeful that (the pope) will come to Quito and that he will bless us and bless the country," Archbishop Espinoza said; "we know that he is praying for Ecuador."
The pope previously visited Ecuador in 2015 as part of a three-country tour that included Bolivia and Paraguay.
While Pope Francis traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to celebrate the closing Mass of the 2021 International Eucharistic Congress, popes have not attended each congress. In 2016, Pope Francis sent Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, to the Philippines to represent him at that year's congress.
The International Eucharistic Congress is typically celebrated every four years in different cities around the world to bear witness to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The first international congress was held in Lille, France, in 1881.
The 2024 congress, which will be held in Ecuador for the first time, will coincide with the 150th anniversary of the country's consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.