Pope Francis in Asia

At the start of his two-day Sri Lanka trip on January 13, Pope Francis sent out a message of peace and reconciliation after a decades-long civil war in the island nation. "The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity," he said.

The 78-year-old Pope's visit to the South Asian nation came just days after a presidential election which exposed bitter divisions on the island and saw the surprise victory of Maithripala Sirisena - who personally welcomed the Pope - over longtime leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.

While he didn't specifically mention the previous government's refusal to cooperate with a UN-led investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the final months of the war, the Pope said: "The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth." Only in 2009 did Colombo manage to end the civil war that claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people, according to the UN.

The Pope also said prayers in a small church that was located on the front lines of the conflict between government troops and guerrillas seeking a separate homeland for the country's Tamil minority. Only around six percent of the country's population is Catholic, but the religion is seen as a unifying force as it includes people from both the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil ethnic groups.

The Argentine Pope's second visit to Asia also took him to the Philippines, a bastion of Christianity in the region, where Catholics account for about 80 percent of the country's population. Francis was welcomed by tens of thousands of ecstatic Filipinos who lined the streets for hours to see him upon his arrival in the capital Manila on January 15 amid massive security.

While en route to the Philippines, Pope Francis said there were limits to freedom of speech, especially when it insults or ridicules someone's faith. While he condemned the violent attack on Charlie Hebdo as an "aberration," he added: "You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others." Here he holds up a plaque with an image of Sancta Teresia.

In his first full day in the Philippines, the head of the Catholic Church called on authorities in the Southeast Asian nation to reject corruption and urged them to instead hear the cries of the poor suffering from "scandalous social inequalities." Nearly a quarter of the country's population lives below the poverty line.

After meeting President Benigno Aquino at the presidential palace, the Pope traveled to the Manila Cathedral to celebrate mass. Aquino has clashed with local Catholic leaders over a reproductive health bill. The bill, which passed in 2012 and was endorsed by the Supreme Court last year, requires the state to supply condoms and birth control pills, as well as provide sex education in schools.

Pope Francis flew Saturday to the eastern province of Leyte, where Typhoon Haiyan left more than 7,300 dead and missing, and leveled entire villages in 2013. In the city of Tacloban, the Pope performed a mass with thousands of worshippers. Although Francis was later due to meet survivors of the typhoon, he was forced to cut short his trip and leave early due to a storm.

On Sunday, January 18, the head of the Catholic Church celebrated an open air mass in the Philippines capital, Manila. Some six million people are estimated to have turned out for the event, which was one of the highlights of Francis' Asian trip.

This was the pontiff's second trip to Asia. In August 2014, Pope Francis visited South Korea, where he urged people from the North and the South of the divided peninsula to reject the "mindset of suspicion and confrontation" that clouds their relations and find new ways to forge peace.