Prosperous Singapore is stepping up security measures and preparing for the pope’s visit on Wednesday, the first by a Catholic Church leader since 1986, when the island will showcase its religious plurality at the end of Francisco’s long and grueling Asia-Oceania tour.
A city-state like the Vatican and a paradigm of prioritizing security and development, the stopover in Singapore, which hosts the Pope from this Wednesday to Friday, represents a contrast with the previous destinations of the trip from September 2 to 13, which took the Supreme Pontiff to some of the poorest corners of the planet.
After starting his tour in Indonesia and continuing through Papua New Guinea and East Timor, the Pope will rest in Singapore.where he only plans to meet later with members of the Society of Jesus at the Saint Francis retreat.
The visit by the 87-year-old pope is an exceptional event on the island, which last received John Paul II in 1986, and for which land, sea and air security controls have been reinforced.
The Immigration Control Authority (ICA) posted on its Facebook account on Sunday that until the 14th “security checks on travelers will be reinforced” and warned of possible delays in immigration passes on an island that often prides itself on efficiency and punctuality.
For Singapore, which combines economic openness and control of freedoms, the visit in addition It will be the first major international expo since Lawrence Wong came to power in May.leaving behind the Lee era, by the “father of the nation”, Lee Kuan Yew, and his son and former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The pope will meet Wong on Thursday and then deliver a speech at the National University of Singapore, events that will precede the central event of the visit, a Mass that day at 5:15 p.m. (0915 GMT) at Singapore’s National Stadium, where 50,000 attendees are expected and security checks are tight.
Mass and religious plurality
“People are very excited to be able to see it. Obviously there are many Catholics who will not be able to attend, but I think everyone is very happy,” said Elizabeth Rodríguez, a Colombian scientist who won an entry in one of the raffles organized to distribute them.
A resident of Singapore, Rodríguez assures that the volunteers who help guarantee security during the mass have been “in the stadium all day preparing” since the beginning of the week, and that they will not be allowed to bring food or drinks from outside, although there will be an option to buy them inside.
After the massive event, Pope Francis will visit a group of sick and elderly people at the Santa Teresa House on Friday.then honor the religious plurality of the island of 5.7 million inhabitants with a meeting with young people of different beliefs in a university residence.
Independent from Malaysia in 1965, what was a fishing island during British colonization, only the first Catholic priest arrived in 1821, and thanks to its strategic port location, the number of missionaries and faithful increased as the country industrialized until it currently stands at around 395,000, according to their archdiocese.
“A unique attribute of the Catholic Church in Singapore is its deep relationship with other religions in the country… We come together to debate and work for the common good,” Singapore Cardinal William Goh said in a writing published on the Vatican website on September 2.
According to the official census, about 80% of Singapore’s population professes a religion, with Buddhism (31%), followed by Christianity (19%), Islam (15.6%), Taoism (8.8%) and Hinduism (5%).
About 37% of Christians are Catholic and the majority are of Chinese origin, the predominant ethnic group in Singapore (about 74%), followed by Malays (13%, usually Muslim) and Indians (about 9%).
The Pope will leave Singapore on Friday at 11:50 a.m. (5:20 a.m. in Spain), after completing the longest international tour of his pontificate at nearly 88 years old and with mobility problems that require him to use a wheelchair.
