Pope Francis intends to visit the United States next year, CNN is reporting.
The pope already is set to meet President Barack Obama March 27 at the Vatican. That comes as part of a European trip Obama has planned and follows a trip by Secretary of State John Kerry to the Vatican earlier this month.
So far, the Vatican has confirmed Pope Francis will visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. That trip will come in May.
His first pastoral visit outside Italy was to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last July for World Youth Day.
As other religion reporters have pointed out, this isn’t the first time the pope has expressed interest in visiting the U.S.:
CNN "breaks" what's already been said: Pope Francis wants to, and maybe might, visit US in 2015 http://t.co/EtVjh8IXKk @RNS
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) January 24, 2014
