Vatican, 28 August, 2023 / 8:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis has asked for prayers as he prepares to visit “the heart of Asia,” the sparsely-populated country of Mongolia.
The pope will travel approximately 5,600 miles to Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4.
“It is a much-desired visit,” he said on Aug. 27 after his weekly Angelus address at the Vatican.
The trip, he said, “will be an opportunity to embrace a Church that is small in number but vibrant in faith and great in charity, and also to meet at close quarters a noble, wise people with a strong religious tradition that I will have the honor of getting to know, especially in the context of an interreligious event.”
During the four-day visit, Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with government leaders, engage in interreligious dialogue, and offer Mass for the small Catholic population, which numbers just 1,450 in a country of about 3 million people.
