Pope Francis enters Papua New Guinea's remote jungles with humanitarian aid and toys

VANIMO, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Pope Francis traveled to the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea on Sunday to celebrate the Catholic Church on the peripheries, bringing with him medicine, musical instruments and a message of love for the people who live there.

Francis flew aboard a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 transport plane from Port Moresby to Vanimo, on the northwest coast of the South Pacific nation. There, Francis met with the local Catholic community and missionaries from his native Argentina who have been ministering to them.

For an Argentine pope who marveled in 2013 at having been chosen from the “end of the Earth” to lead the church, it was a voyage to another end of the Earth on the longest, farthest trip of Francis' pontificate.

Francis has previously traveled to the edge of the Arctic (to apologize to the Inuit people for church abuses), and into the Peruvian Amazon (to draw attention to its plight), and to the plains of Ur, Iraq (to boost Christian-Muslim ties). But even by his standards, Sunday's trip to remote Vanimo was extraordinary.