Vatican City - Pope Francis will travel to Mexico in 2016, a Vatican spokesman has confirmed, without specifying the trip's dates.

Federico Lombardi confirmed a Mexican Televisa television report that the Argentinian pontiff will visit the country, which the pontiff said in an interview with Televisa in March "would have to be at least a week long."

While in Mexico, the Pope will visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Roman Catholic church, minor basilica and national shrine in the northern part of Mexico City. One of the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, the shrine was built near the hill of Tepeyac where Our Lady of Guadalupe is believed to have appeared to Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin in December 1531. The Pope will pray in the new Basilica that houses the original tilma (or cloak) of Juan Diego, which holds the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

While his full schedule is not yet known, Francis is also expected to travel to an area on the border with the United States where migrants try to cross illegally – a gesture he is believed to have first considered in 2014 due to the surge of unaccompanied children from Central America, including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, that were detained while trying to enter the US.

Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed his sympathy for immigrants, whether referring to Mexicans or Central Americans traveling to the US, or Africans traveling to Europe.

Francis will follow in the footsteps of predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI in visiting Mexico, one of the strongest Catholic countries in the world. Pope John Paul II travelled five times to Mexico during his 26-year papacy, and Benedict XVI visited once in 2012.