Francis, 80, "will do everything he can", to attend the World Meeting of Families, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, a senior Vatican official, told journalists, as he announced plans and final dates (August 21-26, 2018) for the ninth edition of the gathering of Catholic families.
Francis will be the first pope to visit Ireland since John Paul II in 1979. The country has undergone momentous social and economic change since then and the Church's influence in what was once one of the most fervently Catholic countries in the world is now greatly reduced.
The Taoiseach, as the Irish premier is titled, has praised Francis for improving the Church's efforts to combat sex abuse by clerics - an issue on which he had accused the Vatican of "dysfunction, disconnection and elitism" in 2011.
At their meeting in November, Kenny and Francis discussed the possibility of the pope's visit including a leg in Northern Ireland.
More From This Section
No decisions have been made on that front amid fears of the region's peace deal unravelling due to Britain's decision to leave the European Union.
And the Catholic hierarchy is battling to defend the country's constitutional ban on abortion, which political pundits expect to be put to a new referendum next year, possibly soon after Francis visits.
Cardinal Farrell told reporters the theme of the 2018 World Families Meetings would be the Church's conception of married life between a man and a woman. The last gathering of its kind, in Philadelphia in 2015, was also addressed by Francis, who has made family life one of the central themes of his papacy.