Advertisement
Despite advanced age and health challenges, the pope visited six countries on three continents in 2023.
Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged people to look for the quiet goodness in the world, even when the tendency is to pay more attention to failure and scandal.
In his in-flight press conference returning from Mongolia on Monday, Pope Francis outlined his vision for the upcoming synodal assembly in October, which he said should be a prayerful exercise in dialogue free from ideology, not full of “political chatter” like a television talk show.
Addressing charity workers in Mongolia on Monday, Pope Francis said doing good requires loving others and seeking the best for them without expecting anything in return.
Catholics from across Asia traveled to Mongolia to attend the country’s first-ever papal Mass with Pope Francis on Sunday.
In a meeting with Mongolian Buddhists, Shamans, Shintoists, and other religious representatives, Pope Francis said Sunday that interreligious dialogue is “not antithetical to proclamation” but helps religious traditions to understand one another.
While the Catholic population in Mongolia is one of the smallest in the world, “being little is not a problem,” Pope Francis assured the local missionaries, because God can accomplish great things with small numbers.
On board the plane taking him to Mongolia, Pope Francis announced Aug. 31 that he is preparing an apostolic letter on St. Thérèse of Lisieux to be published Oct. 15.
Pope Francis made history Friday morning when he became the first pope to travel to Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign country.