Pope Francis confirms trip to Mongolia in September

VATICAN Town (CNS) — Pope Francis confirmed he will journey to Mongolia in September, getting the initially pope to stop by the Asian country, which is residence to a cardinal and some 1,300 Catholics.

In an audience April 14 with executives and staff of ITA Airways, the airline that has taken the pope on his global excursions considering that 2021, he claimed that he will pay a visit to Mongolia, a region sandwiched amongst Russia and China, soon after touring to Hungary in late April and Marseille, France, in September.

During an airborne information conference on his return flight from South Sudan in February, the pope advised journalists there was a “risk that from Marseille I will fly to Mongolia.”

To the airline workers, Pope Francis reported that “God eager” he will leave for his 41st apostolic trip, touring to Hungary April 28-30 “and then there will be Marseille and Mongolia, and all the other people that are on the ready list.”

The pope’s journey to Mongolia will be strategic to the Vatican, which has strained relations with neighboring China, primarily owing to obvious violations of an agreement in between China and the Vatican which outlines processes for the appointment of bishops.
 
In August 2022, Pope Francis named Italian Bishop Giorgio Marengo, apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to be the first cardinal based mostly in Mongolia. Cardinal Marengo has served in Mongolia because 2003 and at 48 a long time aged is the youngest member of the University of Cardinals.

In the February news convention, Pope Francis specified that his trip to Marseille will not be an apostolic check out to France, but rather he will vacation to the city to go to a conference of Mediterranean bishops. He is scheduled to deal with the conference Sept. 23.

“I will go to Marseilles, not to France,” he reported.

The pope also said a journey to India could occur following calendar year but produced no point out of that to the airline employees.

Assembly the employees of ITA, the successor to Alitalia, Pope Francis said the to start with papal journey taken by Pope Paul VI to the Holy Land introduced “a new way of carrying out the pope’s pastoral ministry, which has enabled the bishop of Rome to reach so several folks who would never ever have been in a position to make a pilgrimage to Rome.”

The pope then famous how St. John Paul II designed 104 international trips all through the 27 many years of his papacy, which produced global travel an “integral section of the pontificate.” Likewise, Pope Benedict XVI made 24 international visits in his eight yrs as pope.

Pope Francis has continued the tradition.

“It is essential for me to meet persons, meet communities, the faithful, believers of other faiths, women and gentlemen of goodwill,” mentioned Pope Francis. “Conference in human being, talking in individual is various than building oneself existing with a information or a online video. It is really not the identical.”

The pope thanked the airline staff for assisting him carry his ministry to the environment, noting that he has “some mobility difficulties, but many thanks to your enable I keep on touring.”