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Pope Francis arrived in Mongolia on Friday morning on a visit to encourage one of the world’s smallest and newest Catholic communities.
It’s the first time a pope has visited the landlocked Asian country and comes at a time when the Vatican’s relations with Mongolia’s two powerful neighbours, Russia and China, are once again strained.
Francis arrived in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar after an overnight flight passing through Chinese airspace, affording the pontiff a rare opportunity to send a note of greetings to President Xi Jinping. Vatican protocol calls for the pope to send such greetings whenever he flies over a foreign country.
In his message to Xi, Francis expressed “greetings of good wishes to your excellency and the people of China.”
“Assuring you of my prayers for the wellbeing of the nation, I invoke upon all of you the divine blessings of unity and peace,” Francis said.
Speaking to reporters en route to Mongolia late Thursday, Francis said he was looking forward to visiting a country that has just a few people, but with a culture that you need your senses to understand.
“There are only a few inhabitants — a small people, but a big culture,” he said aboard the ITA charter plane. “I think it will do us good to try to understand this long, big silence, understand what it means but not intellectually, but with senses.” He added: “Mongolia, you understand with your senses.”
On tap are official meetings with the Mongolian president and prime minister and a speech before Mongolian government, cultural and business leaders, followed by Francis’ first encounter with the bishops, priests and nuns who form the backbone of a tiny Catholic community of 1,450 that has only been in existence for a generation.
Three decades of religious freedom
While Christianity has been present in the region for hundreds of years, the Catholic Church has only had a sanctioned presence in…
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