Pope Francis started his four-nation visit to the Asia-Pacific region in Muslim-majority Indonesia for his papacy's longest and farthest trip.

The head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics touched down in the capital, Jakarta on Sept. 3, for a three-day visit with inter-religious ties high on the agenda in the country with the world's biggest Muslim population/

The Pope will then travel to Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore.

The 12-day tour will test the pontiff's increasingly fragile health, but he is often energized by being among his flock, and he emerged from the 13-hour flight smiling and waving, The Guardian reported.

"I thank you for coming on this journey. I think it is the longest one [flight] I have done," he told reporters onboard his chartered plane after landing.

He disembarked in Jakarta in a wheelchair, with an honour guard and greetings by Indonesian officials, including the religious affairs minister.

The Pope, who will turn 88 in December, attended the opening ceremony in Jakarta, where two children in traditional clothes handed him a bouquet of vegetables, fruits, spices and flowers.

On Sept. 4, Francis will meet with political leaders and members of the Indonesian clergy who are helping to fuel the growth of the Catholic Church in Asia, Euro News reported.

The next day, the pontiff will participate in an interfaith meeting in Jakarta's iconic Istiglal mosque with representatives of the six religions officially recognized in Indonesia.

The mosque sits across a piazza from Jakarta's main Catholic cathedral, Our Lady of Assumption.

It is linked to the building underground by the Tunnel of Friendship, which Francis will also visit before signing a declaration with the Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar.

Francis's trip aims to highlight Indonesia as a country of religious tolerance as the country's moderate nature has been under attack by flare-ups of violent extremism, as in 2021, according to Euro News.

In that year, an extremist Islamist couple blew themselves up outside a packed Catholic cathedral on Sulawesi island.

Catholics comprise only 3 percent of Indonesia's population; the archipelago is home to Asia's third-largest Christian community, after the Philippines and China.

Indonesia is not only the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, it is a very large country consisting of many islands, almost 17,000 of them, and many tribes, ethnic groups, languages, and cultures, according to Vatican News.

"Even if Catholics make up about 3 percent of the primarily Muslim population, that 3 percent, however, is some 8 million Catholics of the country's 280 million people in the country built on respect for individuals and their differing religious beliefs," commented Vatican News.

Before Pope Francis, two Popes had visited the country: Pope St. Paul VI in 1970 and Pope St. John Paul II in 1989.