The dates for Pope Francis's possible visit to Ireland were announced on Tuesday as the Vatican released further details of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in 2018.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said he hoped Pope Francis would visit Ireland for the meeting.
He was speaking at a Vatican news conference on Tuesday where it was announced that the event would take place from August 22nd to 26th 2018 with the theme ‘The Gospel of the Family: Joy for the World’.
Dr Martin said it was impossible to say categorically that the Pope would visit. “The Pope has told me that it is his wish to be in Dublin but we all know that the Pope’s programme is defined in detail much closer to the event and many things can change.
“Popes have gone to various world family days but at this point we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Dr Martin said while it was the hope of Irish Catholics that the Pope would come, preparations for the “important event” continued.
In the event of a papal visit to Ireland, Dr Martin said Irish bishops would like the programme to include a visit to Northern Ireland. Pope John Paul II did not visit the North during his 1979 visit for security reasons.
Asked by The Irish Times if a Northern Irish stop has been planned, Archbishop Martin replied: “The programme has not yet been defined...but I think that a visit to Northern Ireland, even a short visit, of a political nature, of an ecumenical nature..will be very important.
“Pope Francis has this tendency to make important gestures of reconciliation...And I suspect that when we start to talk about this trip, Pope Francis will surprise us all with some highly symbolic gesture.”
Give the age of the Pope a possible visit in 2018 “would inevitably have a more restricted programme” than that of Pope John Paul in 1979, according to a statement from the Irish Bishops’ Congress.
Since it was announced in Philadelphia last September that Dublin had been chosen as the venue for the next World Meeting of Families, senior Vatican sources have consistently said they are unable to confirm the presence of the Pope at an event so far into the future.
The Pope has attended six of the last eight world family days and Vatican insiders take it for granted that the Pope (whoever he is in 2018) will attend the Dublin meeting.
Dr Martin said he was in Rome for last October’s Synod on the Family, just weeks after the Philadelphia announcement. As he walked into Synod Hall on the first morning, he met the Pope who said to him:”Remember, Dublin begins today”.
Dr Martin explained: “In Pope Francis’s mind, the IX World Meeting of Families in Dublin is not an isolated event. It belongs within a process of discernment and encouragement, of accompaniment and animation of families.
“It belongs within a programme of renewal of the Church’s pastoral concern and pastoral care for the family and for families...it will be an important milestone in the application of the fruits of the Synodal process and of the apostolic exhortation (at the conclusion of the Synod), Amoris Letitia (The Joy of Love)”.
The Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin welcomed the announcement. In a statement he said that after World Youth Day in Krakow this July the meeting in Dublin will “ be the next great global event in the calendar” of the Church.
“ The Catholic Church in Ireland is blessed to have been chosen to host, for the first time, this special faith-filled event for families.” It was his hope families in every parish in the country will be able to participate in preparations for the event.
