With China’s crackdown on religious minorities as a backdrop, Pope Francis yesterday joined Mongolian shamans, Buddhist monks and a Russian Orthodox priest to highlight the role that religions can play in forging world peace, as he presided over an interfaith meeting highlighting Mongolia’s tradition of religious tolerance.
Francis listened intently as a dozen faith leaders — including those from Jewish, Muslim, Bahai, Hindu, Shinto and evangelical Christian backgrounds — described their beliefs and their relationship with heaven.
Several said the traditional Mongolian ger, or round-shaped yurt, was a potent symbol of harmony with the divine — a warm place of family unity, open to the heavens, where strangers are welcome.
Photo: Reuters
The interfaith event, held at a theater in the capital, Ulan Bator, came midway through Francis’ four-day visit to Mongolia, the first by a pope. He is in Mongolia to minister to one of the world’s smallest and newest Catholic communities and highlight Mongolia’s tradition of tolerance in a region where the Holy See’s relations with neighboring China and Russia are often strained.
According to statistics by the Catholic nonprofit group Aid to the Church in Need, Mongolia is 53 percent Buddhist, 39 percent atheist, 3 percent Muslim, 3 percent Shaman and 2 percent Christian.
Later, Francis presided over a Mass in the capital’s sports stadium that the Vatican had said would also be attended by pilgrims from China.
One small group of Chinese faithful from Xinjiang attended his meeting at the city’s cathedral on Saturday. They held up a Chinese flag and chanted “All Chinese love you” as his car drove by.
The Vatican’s difficult relations with China and Beijing’s crackdown on religious minorities have been a constant backdrop to the trip, even as the Vatican hopes to focus attention instead on Mongolia and its 1,450 Catholics.
No Chinese bishops are believed to have been allowed to travel to Mongolia, whereas at least two dozen bishops from other countries across Asia have accompanied pilgrims for the events.
Hong Kong cardinal-elect Stephen Chow (周守仁) was on hand and accompanied 40 pilgrims to Mongolia, saying it was an event highlighting the reach of the universal church. He declined to discuss the absence of his Chinese counterparts, focusing instead on Francis and the importance of his visit to Mongolia for the Asian church.
“I think the Asian church is also a growing church. Not as fast as Africa — Africa is growing fast — but the Asian church also has a very important role to play now in the universal church,” he told reporters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has demanded that Catholicism and all other religions adhere strictly to party directives and undergo “Sinicization.”
In the vast Xinjiang region, that has led to the demolition of an unknown number of mosques, but in most cases it has meant the removal of domes, minarets and exterior crosses from churches.
The Vatican and China did sign an accord in 2018 over the thorny issue of Catholic bishop nominations, but Beijing has contravened it.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home