Pope Francis confirms trip to Mongolia in September

VATICAN City (CNS) — Pope Francis verified he will travel to Mongolia in September, getting to be the initial pope to take a look at the Asian nation, which is house 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 worldwide excursions given that 2021, he explained that he will visit Mongolia, a region sandwiched among Russia and China, just after traveling to Hungary in late April and Marseille, France, in September.

Throughout an airborne information meeting on his return flight from South Sudan in February, the pope explained to journalists there was a “chance that from Marseille I will fly to Mongolia.”

To the airline employees, Pope Francis said that “God keen” he will go away for his 41st apostolic trip, touring to Hungary April 28-30 “and then there will be Marseille and Mongolia, and all the other individuals that are on the ready record.”

The pope’s trip to Mongolia will be strategic to the Vatican, which has strained relations with neighboring China, generally owing to evident violations of an agreement between China and the Vatican which outlines techniques for the appointment of bishops.
 
In August 2022, Pope Francis named Italian Bishop Giorgio Marengo, apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to be the to start with cardinal centered in Mongolia. Cardinal Marengo has served in Mongolia since 2003 and at 48 many years outdated is the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.

In the February news meeting, Pope Francis specified that his trip to Marseille will not be an apostolic stop by to France, but rather he will travel to the metropolis to attend a assembly of Mediterranean bishops. He is scheduled to tackle the conference Sept. 23.

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

The pope also said a trip to India could transpire up coming year but made no point out of that to the airline personnel.

Conference the workers of ITA, the successor to Alitalia, Pope Francis reported the initially papal vacation taken by Pope Paul VI to the Holy Land released “a new way of carrying out the pope’s pastoral ministry, which has enabled the bishop of Rome to achieve so quite a few persons who would hardly ever have been equipped to make a pilgrimage to Rome.”

The pope then observed how St. John Paul II made 104 intercontinental visits all through the 27 years of his papacy, which made international vacation an “integral portion of the pontificate.” In the same way, Pope Benedict XVI made 24 intercontinental excursions in his eight many years as pope.

Pope Francis has continued the custom.

“It can be vital for me to meet up with persons, fulfill communities, the faithful, believers of other faiths, gals and guys of goodwill,” stated Pope Francis. “Meeting in human being, speaking in person is various than creating oneself current with a concept or a movie. It can be not the exact same.”

The pope thanked the airline staff for assisting him convey his ministry to the planet, noting that he has “some mobility difficulties, but thanks to your aid I go on touring.”