Pope Francis has long expressed a desire to visit Russia and China in hopes of healing the church’s historical rifts and ensuring the faith’s future in the populous East.
On Friday, he came very close, landing in Mongolia, a country sandwiched between the two geopolitical giants, with a minuscule Catholic population that no pope has visited before.
“The inhabitants are few,” Francis acknowledged in brief remarks on the plane to Mongolia.
But the country, which at times seems so vast as not to end, is also a place where the “culture is great,” he said.
On Sunday, he called the trip a “much-desired visit which will be an opportunity to embrace a church that is small in number, but vibrant in faith and great in charity.”But many observers in and out of the church are wondering why Francis, who is 86 and often uses a wheelchair, traveled more than 5,000 miles to visit fewer than 1,500 Catholics, in a geographically vast nation where a good chunk of the largely nomadic population of 3.3 million knows very little about him, according to a pollster.
Persons:
Pope Francis, ” Francis, ”, Francis
Locations:
Russia, China, Mongolia