“I would like to envision this House of Mercy as a place where people of different creeds, and non-believers as well, can join efforts with local Catholics in order to offer compassionate assistance to our many brothers and sisters in the one human family. That would be a splendid witness of fraternity: a fraternity that the State will rightly seek to protect and promote.”
The 86-year-old pope is the first pope in history to set foot in Mongolia. After a more than nine-hour overnight flight, he spent the first day of his trip resting at the apostolic prefecture.
During his time in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, the pope met President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh and with the country’s small Catholic community.
Mongolia is home to 1,450 Catholics, which is far fewer than 1% of the country’s 3.3 million people. The Apostolic Prefecture of Ulaanbaatar, a missionary area that does not have enough Catholics to warrant a diocese, has jurisdiction over the entirety of Mongolia.
Catholics from South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan traveled to Mongolia to see the pope. As Pope Francis left the charity, Hong Kong Catholics gathered outside of the building sang the pope a hymn in Cantonese Chinese.
During his meeting with charity workers, Pope Francis pointed out the important role Catholic missionaries have had in leading charitable activities in Mongolia since their arrival in the 1990s, and said that “generous service to our neighbors – concern for their good health, basic needs, education and culture – has distinguished this vibrant portion of the People of God from its inception.”
He said he liked the name chosen for the House of Mercy: “Those two words contain a definition of the Church, which is called to be a home where all are welcome and can experience a higher love that stirs and moves the heart: the tender and provident love of the Father, who wants us to be brothers and sisters in his house.”
“So here we are, together, in this house that you have built and that today I have the joy of blessing and inaugurating. It stands as a concrete expression of that care for others that is the hallmark of the Christian community; for where we find welcome, hospitality and openness to others, we breathe in ‘the fragrance of Christ’ (cf. 2 Cor. 2:15).”
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.
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