All of the Pope’s voyages abroad, including his trip to Malta, have been postponed to 2022, Italian media report.

Pope Francis was due in Malta last May, but his visit was postponed because of the spread of Coronavirus.

Italian media are now reporting that all his visits have been postponed to 2022 in the hope that a vaccine would have been discovered by that time.

His last trip outside of the Vatican was to Bari on 23 February, while his last visit outside of Italy was to Thailand and Japan in November 2019.

The pope’s meeting with families and young people, scheduled for Rome in 2021 and Lisbon in 2022, have been postponed to 2022 and 2023 respectively.

No date has as yet been scheduled for his Malta visit, which had originally been slated for 31 May this year.