HOW HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TRAVELS ON APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO MONGOLIA! (1682 hits)
For Immediate Release From Vatican News!
Pope arrives in Mongolia to visit 'people of a great culture'
Pope Francis has arrived in Mongolia‘s capital, Ulaanbaatar, effectively kicking off his 43 international Apostolic Journey that ends on 4 September. By Linda Bordoni - Ulaanbaatar
The ITA Airways flight carrying Pope Francis to Mongolia, a “land of silence”, he said chatting to journalists on board the plane after take-off on Thursday evening, “a land so vast, so big. It will help us understand what it means: not intellectually but with the senses“, landed shortly before 10 am local time.
Pope Francis kicks off Apostolic Journey to Mongolia The Pope was welcomed at Ulaanbaatar‘s international Chinggis Khaan airport by Monsignor Fernando Duarte Barros Reis, Chargé d‘affaires at Mongolia‘s Apostolic Nunciature, and by the Ambassador of Mongolia to the Holy See, Ms Davaasuren Gerelmaa, and then by Church and government delegations, awaiting him on the tarmac.
The Mongolian State Honour Guard proudly held rank in their red, blue and yellow uniforms and iron helmets that recall Mongolian warriors of ancient history.
Welcome ceremony at airport
During a brief welcome ceremony at the airport, a young Mongolian woman in traditional dress offered the Pope a cup containing “Aaruul“ - boiled yoghurt – made from the milk of cattle, yaks and camels, and symbolizing the nomadic culture of the Mongolian people as it one of their most common travel provisions.
Pope Francis graciously accepted the cup and took a big bite of curd.
The Pope is scheduled to rest on Friday after the long flight. His official meetings and events begin on Saturday morning.
Papal telegrams As is customary in his Apostolic Journeys, on his way to the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, Pope Francis wired greetings to the leaders of each country he flew over, including President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China.
In his message, the Pope said: "I send greetings of good wishes to Your Excellency and the people of China as I pass through your country's airspace en route to Mongolia. Assuring you of my prayers for the wellbeing of the nation, I invoke upon all of you the divine blessings of unity and peace."
On Friday, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, said the Pope's blessing reflected “friendliness and goodwill”, noting that China and the Holy See had maintained contacts in recent years.
"China is willing to continue to walk in the same direction with the Vatican, conduct constructive dialogues, enhance understanding, accumulate mutual trust, and promote the process of improving the relationship of the two sides," Mr. Wang said.
Pope Francis also sent telegrams to the leaders of Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, which he visited in on 13-15 September 2022 to attend the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.
In his message to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, the Pope accompanied his greetings with wishes “for a fruitful commitment to the common good and with prayers to God to support those who work with solidarity initiatives”.
The Church in Mongolia
The East Asian nation the Pope has chosen to visit during his 43rd Apostolic Journey abroad, is the second largest landlocked country in the world (after Kazakstan). Its tiny, traditionally nomadic population, counts less than 3.5 million people; less than 2 percent are Christians.
After 70 years of communist regime, a satellite nation of the USSR, Mongolia underwent a peaceful revolution in 1990 and established a multi-party democracy. It adopted a new Constitution that guarantees religious freedom.
That’s when the Catholic missionaries who had been exiled during the years of communism came back into the country with the task of rebuilding the Church from scratch. Today there are no more than 8 parishes and about 1,500 baptized Catholics.
But they are welcome and integrated and appreciated by authorities and by the people also thanks to the many social, health care and educational programmes they run for the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and the abandoned.
The young Church is headed by the College of Cardinals’ youngest Cardinal, Giorgio Marengo, whom Pope Francis elevated to Cardinal during the Consistory in August 2022.
The visa issue
One issue the missionaries hope will be placed on the table in the wake of the Pope’s visit regards the visas they need to be able to live and work in the country.
Despite their commitment to social services, the missionaries - many of whom have worked in the country for years and learned the language - receive only short-term visas and have to go abroad every three months without knowing whether they will be allowed to come back. For every single (expensive) missionary visa, the government requests the missionaries employ five local people.
Mongolia’s nuclear-weapon-free status In a world ruptured by war and the threat of nuclear catastrophe, Mongolia proudly upholds its “nuclear-weapon-free status”. In 2022, Mongolia celebrated the 30th anniversary of the status with a regional round-table gathering scholars and experts in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the importance, challenges and prospects of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) development.
In 1992, Mongolia, as a State committed to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects and to achieving nuclear disarmament, declaring its territory a nuclear-weapon-free zone and proposing to have that status internationally guaranteed. Mongolia’s initiative was welcomed by nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon States alike.
It is still working to consolidate and strengthen that status.
The environmental challenge
The Pope’s visit to Mongolia comes as he drafts the second part of his encyclical, Laudato si': On Care for Our Common Home, and the country has an important role to play in the environmental challenges of the times.
On the one hand, it has to urgently tackle the severe pollution problems caused by the mining industry that is exploited by foreign conglomerates, and by the fact that increasingly many poor nomadic people have flocked to the overpopulated city of Ulaanbaatar that today, hosts half the population, and burn coal and plastics in their traditional ger tents during the cold winter months, resulting in extremely poor and hazardous air quality.
On the other, Mongolia is called to protect its unique and precious ecosystems. The vast country that stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, occupies six different ecological zones. Mongolians uphold their ancestral land as “the second lung of the planet” noting that as the Amazon rainforest absorbs the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, Central Asia filters the water that irrigates the rest of Asia.
Mongolian authorities are well aware of these issues and co-partner with different international organizations to implement sustainable development programmes.
Pope Francis kicks off Apostolic Journey to Mongolia
Pope Francis departs from Rome aboard the papal plane as he begins his Apostolic Journey to Mongolia, and tells journalists traveling with him that Mongolia can teach us to embrace silence. By Devin Watkins
The papal plane took off from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport on Thursday afternoon at 6:41 PM bound for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
The flight is scheduled to last for nine and a half hours, and is due to land in the capital of Mongolia at 10 AM (GMT +8).
After departure, Pope Francis passed through the cabin and greeted the 70-odd journalists covering his Apostolic Journey to Mongolia.
In off-the-cuff remarks, the Pope said his visit to the Asian nation offers a chance to embrace silence.
"To go to Mongolia is to go to a [numerically] small people in a vast land," he said. "Mongolia seems to have no end, and its inhabitants are few, a people few in number of a great culture. I think it will do us good to understand this silence, so vast, so big. It will help us understand what it means: not intellectually but with the senses. Mongolia is to be understood with the senses. Let me say that it would do us good perhaps to listen a to a little of Borodin's music, which was able to express what this breadth and greatness of Mongolia means."
As the Pope greeted Eva Fernandez Huescar, a journalist with Radio Cope, she presented him with a water canteen that belonged to a Ukrainian soldier who was wounded by an explosion.
He blessed the shrapnel-riddled canteen, which the soldier had given to a church in Lviv to thank God for the gift of his life. Ms. Fernandez plans to return the canteen to the church after the visit to Mongolia has concluded.
Encounter with recipients of Church’s charity Ahead of his departure, Pope Francis met with 12 residents of the Dormitory of Pope Francis, known as the "Gift of Mercy", which sits just outside the walls of Vatican City.
According to the Holy See Press Office, the men hail from various countries, and were part of a group of 30 people who on Wednesday helped to unload a shipment of humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.
Around 300,000 portions of freeze-dried broth were shipped to the Vatican from South Korea to aid people suffering from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Christian dentist works to end 'Gospel poverty' in Mongolia Dr. Amarsaikhan Bazar, director of the Accelerating Ending Gospel Poverty project in Mongolia, recounts his activities in the fields of healthcare and evangelization. By Linda Bordoni and Edoardo Giribaldi
"I worked more than 32 years in Mongolian National Medical University, and just two years ago, I moved more from the professional to a more \evangelism side."
Speaking with Vatican News, Dr. Amarsaikhan Bazar described Pope Francis' Apostolic Journey in Mongolia as a milestone in the country's transition toward democracy and "freedom to know God and how God is so powerful."
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Humanitarian mission
Dr. Bazar's perspective is unique, as it blends a more practical and hands-on approach to Christianity through his job as a dentist, and a more "institutional" one as the director of the Accelerate Ending Gospel Poverty project in Mongolia; an initiative sustained by Haggai International.
“I'm working to coordinate all the Christian activities in order for the Mongolians to have more access to Gospel, and of course and as a medical professional, I am now leading a medical humanitarian mission in Mongolia.”
Verbist Care Center: Nurturing hope for abandoned children in Mongolia As the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, awaits the arrival of Pope Francis, a beacon of hope shines brightly in the city - the Verbist Care Center (VCC), which provides a sanctuary for poor and abandoned children and is run by the Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By Francesca Merlo and Linda Bordoni - Ulaanbaatar
The Verbist Care Centre (VCC) stands as a testament to the unwavering dedication of the Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM Fathers) to alleviate the suffering of abandoned children in Mongolia.
With its doors first opened in 1995 in the heart of Ulaanbaatar, the VCC has provided a safe haven for approximately 46 boys and girls aged 2 to 18. Among them, the older children attend school, while the younger ones receive both education and care at the centre.
Particularly poignant in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic is the addition of a psychologist to the centre's staff, reflecting a holistic approach to the children's well-being.
Pope visits Mongolia 'like Jesus who walks on the periphery' Pope Francis’s Apostolic Visit to Mongolia, where less than 2 percent of the population is Christian, highlights his closeness to every single member of the flock, especially the weakest. A missionary priest on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar talks about the joys and challenges of evangelization in a country in which pastors really smell of the sheep. By Linda Bordoni
Many observers were surprised to hear of Pope Francis’ decision to visit the East Asian nation of Mongolia, a landlocked country bordered by Russia to the north and China to the South, and where a tiny Church bears witness to a truly extraordinary apostolic zeal and missionary witness.
Salesian Father Jaroslav Vracowsky, originally from the Czech Republic, spoke to Vatican News about the past seven years of his mission in a small parish on the outskirts of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar.
“This is true mission country,” he says, expressing infinite joy for Pope Francis’s visit during which, he said, as a pastor he will most certainly take in the “smell of the sheep.”
Listen to the interview with Salesian Fr Jaroslav Vracovsky The parish Fr. Jaroslav works at is in a tiny place called Shuwuu. The three Salesian missionaries that run it are overjoyed to have a real church made of brick and stone in which to celebrate the Lord. Until mid-August, when their new Church of the Holy Family was inaugurated and blessed, liturgical celebrations, catechism and social work, all took place in Mongolian tents called “gers” – the traditional Mongolian dwellings, ideally suited to the nomadic lifestyle of the people, who can quickly assemble, disassemble and transport them according to their needs.
He describes his work as similar to that of a parish priest, fully immersed in a reality in which the faithful “are like first-generation Christians because the Catholic Church [in Mongolia] started in 1992 from zero.”
