Pope Francis arrives in Sri Lanka on Tuesday morning to start a highly anticipated six-day trip to Asia that will also take him to the Philippines. Here are some glimpses of his trip as it unfolds:
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CATHOLIC BELT
Catholics are a small minority in Sri Lanka, but Pope Francis would be forgiven for thinking otherwise during his drive from the airport to Colombo, the capital.
He will pass a series of Catholic churches along the airport road and dozens of shrines – small roadside structures, often with glassed-in statues of saints dressed in silks and covered with jewelry.
Sri Lanka’s so-called Catholic belt, where many towns and villages have large Catholic communities, begins just north of Colombo around Wattala, and continues north past the airport for hundreds of miles along the coast. Most of Sri Lanka’s Catholics have long lived on the coast, where Portuguese missionaries concentrated their work in the 16th century.
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BY THE NUMBERS:
Catholics make up slightly over 6 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 21 million, according to the government. They are by far the largest Christian denomination in the country. Other Christians make up just 1.3 percent of the population.
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Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, India, contributed to this report.