Pope Francis hopes to increase his schedule of foreign travel next year, he said in an interview with the Argentine new agency Télam, published October 22.

The Pope said that he hopes to travel to Hungary and Congo in 2022. He also said that he might visit East Timor and Papua New Guinea—carrying out plans that were shelved in 2020 because of the Covid epidemic. Detailed planning for these trips has not yet begun, he admitted.

Pope Francis curtailed his travel this year because of continued Covid restrictions, and has acknowledged that he limited his schedule as he recovered from intestinal surgery in July. He had hoped to be in Glasgow later this month for a climate summit, but will not make that trip. However he is still planning to travel to Cyprus and Greece early in December.