Pope Francis held a private audience with Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President of Singapore, around two months ahead of his apostolic visit to the Southeast Asian nation.
Tharman is currently attending a plenary of the Group of Thirty (G30) in Rome, hosted by the Bank of Italy, and is set to co-chair a meeting of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
He will be on official visits to Italy and Estonia from June 24 to 26.
In a Facebook post, Tharman shared details about their closed-door meeting, where he was accompanied by his wife Jane Yumiko Ittogi.
The president said the Holy Father spoke about the urgent need to end “a world at war and conflict,” which causes severe human suffering.
“We also discussed interfaith harmony, more important than ever,” said Tharman.
“I shared Singapore's continuous efforts to preserve harmony between our many faiths, both through leadership engagements and activities on the ground,” he said.
Moreover, Tharman also described the gift he received from the pontiff.
“Pope Francis gave me a bronze cast depicting two hands shaking, a woman with a child, and a migrant ship, against the backdrop of St. Peter's colonnade in the Vatican City [with] a simple and profound description: ‘Let's fill our hands with other hands.’”
The Holy Father is scheduled to visit Singapore from September 11 to 13. This will be the first Papal visit to the country since 1986 by Saint John Paul II.
He will celebrate a Papal Mass on September 12 at the National Stadium.
From June 24 to July 31, Catholics may apply for a ticket to the Papal Mass through myCatholicSG platform. Around 40,000 tickets are available.
The Archdiocese of Singapore, through a series of statements, has reiterated that these tickets are free of charge and warned against several phishing scams in various instant messaging platforms.
Some seats at the National Stadium will be reserved for the faithful coming from Brunei and the dioceses of Malaysia, places which are yet to be visited by a pope.
Furthermore, the Archdiocese of Singapore has also released an official prayer to help the faithful in their spiritual preparation for the upcoming Papal Visit.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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