Pope Francis’s two-day visit no reflection on Ireland’s standing
Pontiff (81) has kept his European visits short and many of his trips were just for one day
Pope Francis has announced he will make the first papal trip to Ireland in nearly 40 years, visiting Dublin on August 25th-26th for a Church meeting on families. Video: CTV
It will come as no great surprise that Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland in August will, at two days, be relatively brief. It could be due to his age – he is 81 – but where Europe visits are concerned, the pope does not stay around for long.
His first European trip as pontiff was to Albania in 2014. It lasted a day, as did a visit to Bosnia Herzegovina in 2015 and a voyage to Lesbos in Greece a year later.