Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Mongolia from August 31 to September 4, at the invitation of the Mongolian President and the country's Church leaders.
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| Pope Francis is expected to begin his visit to Mongolia in late August 2023. (Source: Vatican News) |
Director of the Vatican Press Office, Mr. Matteo Bruni, announced the above information in an official announcement on June 3.
The program of the visit and other details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Previously, in an exchange with journalists on the plane returning to Rome after concluding his visit to Hungary in April 2023, Pope Francis shared his plans to visit Mongolia in the near future.
This will be the first visit by a pope to the Asian country with one of the world's smallest Catholic communities (estimated at less than 1,500 out of a population of more than 3 million).
In the most recent cardinal installation ceremony in August 2022, Bishop Giorgio Marengo, 47, Apostolic Administrator of Ulaanbaatar, became Mongolia's first cardinal.
The Vatican established formal diplomatic relations with Mongolia in 1992.
Sharing with AFP , Mr. Antoine Maire, an expert on Mongolia at the French Foundation for Strategic Research, said that Mongolia is a "peripheral country to China" but does not play an intermediary role between the Vatican and Beijing.
The expert said that Pope Francis' visit to Mongolia helps the Vatican "diversify its foreign relations."
Since becoming head of the Vatican in 2013, Pope Francis has made 41 foreign trips, visiting some 60 countries. Since the beginning of this year, he has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Hungary.
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