Schoolchildren eagerly wait for the pope’s arrival outside of the apostolic prefecture on Sept. 1, 2023, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where Pope Francis will be staying for the duration of his four-day visit to the country. / Credit: Colm Flynn/EWTN News
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Sep 1, 2023 / 11:48 am (CNA).
Pope Francis received an enthusiastic welcome to Mongolia on Friday morning after a nearly 10-hour flight on the papal plane.
Upon his arrival at Chinggis Khaan International Airport at 9:52 a.m. local time on Friday, Sept. 1, Pope Francis was greeted with a bowl of Aaruul, dried curds that are a traditional food of Mongolia’s nomadic peoples.
Upon his arrival at Chinggis Khaan International Airport on Sept. 1, 2023, Pope Francis was welcomed with a bowl of Aaruul, dried curds which are a traditional food of Mongolian nomadic peoples. Credit: Vatican Media
A Mongolian cell service provider sent out a public service text message to all of its users to inform them of the pope’s arrival. The message said: “The Roman pope is visiting Mongolia for the first time in our history. Let’s welcome him with kind nomadic hospitality and enjoy the precious moments together.”
The 86-year-old pope was rolled in his wheelchair down a long red carpet flanked by the Mongolian State Honor Guard, who saluted the first pope to ever visit the Asian country.
The Mongolian State Honor Guard stands at attention for the pope’s arrival at Chinggis Khaan International Airport on Sept. 1, 2023. Pope Francis is the first pope in history to visit the Asian country. Credit: Vatican Media
Cardinal Giorgio Marengo was one of the first to welcome Pope Francis to Mongolia. Marengo is an Italian cardinal who has served as a missionary in Mongolia for nearly 20 years. He is the current apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and the world’s youngest cardinal.
Cardinal Giorgio Marengo was one of the first to welcome Pope Francis to Mongolia on Sept. 1, 2023. Marengo is an Italian cardinal who has served as a missionary in Mongolia for nearly 20 years. He is the current apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and the world’s youngest cardinal. Credit: Vatican Media
Mongolian Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh also met with the pope before the pope was taken to the Mongolian apostolic prefecture.
Mongolian Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh received Pope Francis at Chinggis Khaan International Airport and later met with him on his first day in Mongolia on Sept. 1, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
At the apostolic prefecture, where Pope Francis will be staying for the duration of the four-day trip, he was greeted with enthusiasm by representatives of Mongolia’s small Catholic community of only 1,450 Catholics.
At the apostolic prefecture on Sept. 1, 2023, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where Pope Francis will be staying for the duration of the four-day trip, the pope is greeted with enthusiasm by representatives of Mongolia’s small Catholic community of only 1,450 Catholics. Credit: Colm Flynn/EWTN News
Schoolchildren eagerly waited for the pope’s arrival outside of the prefecture, where Marengo resides. Some children performed traditional Mongolian dances for the pope and were excited to receive rosary beads as a gift.
Two dancers who performed for Pope Francis upon his arrival at the apostolic prefecture in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sept. 1, 2023, were proud to show the rosary beads the Holy Father gave them. Credit: Colm Flynn/EWTN News
After the welcome, Pope Francis spent his first day resting before his scheduled speeches and meetings on Saturday and Sunday.
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar.
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show.
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Cardinal-elect Stephen Chow, and other visiting clerics all participated in the festival.
Pope Francis’ first public event will be a welcome ceremony in the city’s Sükhbaatar Square with President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh on Sept. 2. He will later meet with the country’s small Catholic community in the city’s Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in the afternoon.
Pope Francis told journalists in the press corps traveling with him that to visit Mongolia is to encounter “a small people, but a big culture.”
“I think it will do us good to understand this silence … to understand what it means, but not intellectually, with the senses. Mongolia can be understood with the senses,” the pope said.
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Schoolchildren eagerly wait for the pope’s arrival outside of the apostolic prefecture on Sept. 1, 2023, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where Pope Francis will be staying for the duration of his four-day visit to the country. Credit: Colm Flynn/EWTN News
Pope Francis greets the crowds at the apostolic prefecture on Sept. 1, 2023, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where the pope will be staying for the duration of the four-day trip. The pope was met with enthusiasm by representatives of Mongolia’s small Catholic community of only 1,450 Catholics. Credit: Colm Flynn/EWTN News
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Cardinals, visiting Catholics, and the Vatican press corps were invited to experience Mongolian culture at a “Besreg Naadam” festival 24 miles outside the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on Sept. 1, 2023. The festival was filled with traditional Mongolian dancing, a wrestling tournament, musical performances, an archery competition, and a daring equestrian acrobatics show. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
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Canberra, Australia, Feb 18, 2021 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Australia‘s Catholic bishops marked the 200th anniversary of Catholic education in the country this week, calling for continued renewal of Catholic education in the country and the primacy of C… […]
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Manila, Philippines, Jun 23, 2017 / 12:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fake news is a problem everywhere, including in the island nation of the Philippines.
So much so that the bishops of the Catholic-majority country have released a first-of-its-kind pastoral letter to their people imploring them: Please stop sharing fake news.
“At (Jesus’) trial, the question of truth figured prominently. ‘What is truth?’ asked a bewildered Pilate, because he failed to recognize in Jesus, THE TRUTH!” the bishops said.
Therefore, they said, Christians are called to recognize truth in all forms, and to not participate in deceit for falsehoods in any way.
“A fact,” the bishops helpfully explain, “is anything that is or that happens.”
“If one man kills another, it cannot but be a fact that the deed was done, and any ‘alternative fact’ that would have it so that no killing was done is simply false, and, when meant to deceive, a lie!”
The bishops lamented that there are those “who have given themselves to the service of reporting what never happened, concealing what really happened, and distorting what should be presented in a straightforward manner.”
They also observed that social media “has become the unfortunate site of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’. Not only does this offend against the orientation of the human intellect to the truth. It is, more fundamentally, a sin against charity because it hinders persons from making right and sound decisions and induces them, instead, to make faulty ones!”
The letter, issued by Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, president of the Filipino bishops’ conference, includes four obligations for Catholics regarding the truth.
“Catholic faith obliges us to: 1. To refrain from patronizing, popularizing and supporting identified sources of ‘alternative facts’ or ‘fake news,’” they said, referencing a phrase from a media faux pas made by Kellyanne Conway, counselor to U.S. President Donald Trump, earlier this year.
Secondly, Catholics are obliged “To rebut and refute falsehood whenever they are in possession of facts and of data.”
Catholics also must “refuse to be themselves purveyors of fake news and to desist from disseminating this whether on social media or by word of mouth or through any other form of public expression.”
And finally, Catholics must “identify the sources of fake news so that our brothers and sisters may be duly alerted and may know which media and which sites to shun,” they said.
The letter comes during the same month that a “fake news blocker” was launched in the country by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. Their newly-created Google Chrome plug-in “Fakeblok” flags fake news and misinformation on Facebook.
The pastoral letter also comes at a time when opposing political camps in the Philippines are using fake news to advance their agenda, including controversial President Rodrigo Duterte, according to Philippine news source Rappler.
“A number of officials and agencies of the Duterte administration, such as Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson, have also been accused of spreading fake news. Uson and many pro-Duterte bloggers have also discredited legitimate journalists as ‘presstitutes,’” Rappler reported.
The bishops of the country went so far as to say that sharing fake news is not only an offense against human intellect, but a “sin against charity” because “it hinders persons from making right and sound decisions and induces them, instead, to make faulty ones!”
“We your bishops join the Lord Jesus in His prayer that we all be consecrated in the truth, because the Word of the Lord is truth!”
Thanks for the beautiful pictures of the rich and unique aspects of the Mongolian culture.