This will resolve to the country of the first international pastoral visit of the new Pope.
(Italy does not count as international visit!)
Update 2025-04-25 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Eligible Entities Clarification:
San Marino is confirmed as a valid option because it is a sovereign state.
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@itsTomekK No immediate plans for a papal trip to Ukraine
Regarding a possible visit by Pope Leo XIV to Kyiv, Ukraine, following President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s telephone invitation Monday, the Vatican secretary of state indicated that it is still “premature” to consider such a possibility.
Pope Leo XIV “will continue, as he has done numerous times since the start of his pontificate, to call for an end to the war,” Parolin affirmed.
World Leaders Call on Pope Leo XIV To Continue Francis’s Climate Legacy
https://time.com/7284583/world-leaders-pope-leo-francis-climate-legacy/
@Driftloom yes. Even if the turkey trip happens in November, COP30 can still be the first trip. even more symbolic.
@FabioTran It would be, a one-two punch that hits some of his highest stated priorities. He could even potentially hit both on the same trip without returning to the Vatican between, there are logistical advantages there too.
Turkey seems way overpriced unless someone has insider info they aren’t sharing. It’s very symbolically resonant, but that’s not enough for 60%+.
I wouldn’t sleep on Peru. Francis didn’t go back to Argentina, but Leo XIV specifically shouted them out in his initial address, and it’s less fraught politically because Argentina is politically spicier, Leo’s naturalized and not native to Peru, and his role there was more pastoral and missionary-based- focused on the periphery.
I think if he could swing it, Ukraine could be a great target. Francis wanted to go but couldn’t make the logistics and security happen.
@Driftloom “The pope briefly mingled with members of the press seated in the front rows and responded to a few impromptu questions. Asked whether he planned to travel to Iznik, Turkey—site of the first Council of Nicaea, which marks its 1,700th anniversary this year—Leo XIV said, “We are preparing for it.”
@FabioTran That’s not 66% probability of his first visit level of confirmation. The Vatican generally plans multiple international visits in parallel.
@Driftloom sure, Pope Francis was appointed in march 2013, and the only visit that year was to Brazil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pastoral_visits_of_Pope_Francis
This Turkey trip was planed by Pope Francis and it happens in may 2025. What are the odds that he will do another trip before may?
@Driftloom when I look at Wikipedia, he visited 4 countries in the first six months (domincan republic, Mexico, Bahamas, Poland), and another 3 in the next 8 months (Ireland, us, turkey). 7 countries in 14 months, not 9. Can you tell me your sources?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pastoral_visits_of_Pope_John_Paul_II
@FabioTran Lack of clarity on on my part, my count was of countries he was physically present in performing pastoral work, not necessarily only international ones. Vatican City and Italy makes nine. I should have been more precise in my wording, but I don’t think that’s a particularly salient distinction for the point that I’m making, though. He is a vigorous 69 years young, and if the Turkey visit is delayed to November as the patriarch of Constantinople suggested, he could easily squeeze in visit or two that’s lower key and lower stakes before then. He sent some very strong signals of Marian devotion, in several of his initial speeches and addresses, and his first trip outside the Vatican after being elected was to a Marian shrine first, then to Pope Francis’s grave.
There’s a very significant Marian shrine in France for instance, and France hasn’t had a people visit in decades. They are overdue.
Popes don’t generally make international visits in the first two weeks after their election, and you can’t just drop him in as a sub for the plans that Francis made. He is his own pope.
But they do generally start making visits within three or four months after their election. Waiting until November to make his first international visit would be surprising.
@Driftloom thank you for sharing the news that this trip may be postponed to November. I searched for trips planned for 2025 by Francis and the only one mentioned is Turkey. There is some symbolism in Leo honouring Francis wishes in 2025 in his first visit. So I still think the odds are more than 70%, if not much higher. Time will tell
@FabioTran Francis’s health issues as he aged prevented a lot of travel that he wanted to do, so I would be cautious about calibrating too hard on his pace.
I think Leo wants to go for the same reasons Francis did, and that will illuminate his strategy better than modeling it as wanting to do it because it’s what Francis planned. Obviously Nicaea is a crucial event in church history to recognize, but there’s also the synodality aspects not just with the Orthodox Church, but with the increasingly hardline Islamic nature of Turkey. It makes it a more complicated (and important) visit than it might seem at first glance, so the delay didn’t surprise me when I saw news of it. I think he will definitely go, but I don’t think he will want to wait until November to go anywhere. That’s why I’m thinking of important Marian or Augustinian pilgrimage sites. A lot of those are still in “other”, there’s one in Bosnia and Herzegovina that is Marian and in a country known for its religious division and history of war. His choices early on are going to be consciously and thoughtfully calibrated to imply the kind of pope he intends to be. What the man wears to breakfast is the subject of intense discussion, I would be shocked if we have even an itinerary for international travel solidified before the end of June. And it might be Turkey first, and I’ll lose my ass on this! But I think it’s less likely.
If he could swing Ukraine, I bet he’d do it. The religious and symbolic aspects are simpler than going to Turkey, but the security aspects are harder. He’s talked a LOT about peace. India might actually be a possibility too, for that reason.
@Driftloom “Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, has not ruled out the possibility of Pope Leo XIV traveling to Nicaea, located in the present-day Turkish town of Iznik, where the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council will be celebrated later this month.
“It’s an important moment for the Catholic Church and for ecumenism,” the Italian cardinal stated after noting that it could be the new pontiff’s first international destination.”
There is no way that his first international trip will be to the United States when he is trying to show to the world that he is not a pro American Pope. Hence his mention of Peru rather than the United States during his first address upon election. Pope Francis never even visited Argentina during his papacy.