ULAANBAATAR – On his second full day in Mongolia, Pope Francis met with pastors and missionaries who serve the country’s tiny Catholic flock, telling them not to be concerned with numbers and that God loves littleness.
He also spoke at length of the Catholic Church’s contribution to social initiatives and the spread of values such as solidarity and human fraternity, insisting that governments have nothing to fear from the Church or its representatives.
In his speech earlier today, the Pope noted that the famed Marian statue of Our Lady of Heaven in Mongolia, which is housed in the Cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul in Ulaanbaatar where the event took place, was found in a landfill.
Invoking the special significance that mothers hold in Mongolian society, he said the location of where the statue was found was “a tangible sign” of Mary’s “gentle and caring presence.”
“In a place for refuse, this beautiful statue of the Immaculate Mother appeared. Herself free and undefiled by sin, she wanted to draw so close to us as to descend to the dregs of society, so that from the filth of a rubbish heap the purity of the holy Mother of God could shine forth,” he said.
Tradition holds that a Buddhist woman named Tsetsegee found the statue, which Pope Francis blessed on Saturday, in a landfill site in Darkhan nearly 20 years ago, before missionaries had arrived in the area. She eventually donated the statue to Catholic missionaries, and it was enthroned in Ulaanbaatar Cathedral by the current apostolic prefect, Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, in December 2022.
Mary, the pope said, offers the assurance that “being little is not a problem, but a resource,” and that “God loves littleness, and through it he loves to accomplish great things.”
“Brothers and sisters do not be concerned about small numbers, limited success, or apparent irrelevance. That is not how God works,” he said, urging Mongolian Catholics to entrust themselves to Mary’s care, “asking for a renewed zeal and an ardent love that tirelessly and joyfully bears witness to the Gospel.”
Catholics in Mongolia are a small minority, numbering fewer than 1,500 in a country that is roughly 53 percent Buddhist, with most adhering to Tibetan Buddhism, and where suspicion of outside religious influences is still bubbling beneath the surface of the former Communist nation.
After the dissolution of Soviet rule in 1992, religious freedom in Mongolia was restored and the country again began embracing new religious traditions, including Catholicism, with the first modern missionaries arriving immediately after the fall of communism.
However, despite the generally good relations between Church and state, some troubles still exist, particularly on the issue of visas and navigating state involvement when new parishes or Church-related sites are established.
Oftentimes foreign missionaries in Mongolia, no matter how long they’ve lived there or how well they speak the language, receive only short-term visas, meaning they are forced to travel abroad every three months without having the certainty of whether they will be allowed back in.
According to a recent article published in The Diplomat, the Mongolia government also requests that for every missionary visa granted, Catholic entities pay certain fees and employ a number of local citizens.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Saturday that the situation is currently the subject of bilateral talks. “Negotiations are in progress, it should be on the status of the Church and visas for missionaries,” he said.
In his address to authorities earlier Saturday morning, Pope Francis also made reference to a deal being in the works, saying, a bilateral agreement between Mongolia and the Holy See is being negotiated which marks “an important means for the attainment of those conditions essential for the pursuit of the ordinary activities in which the Catholic Church is engaged.”
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