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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CNA Staff, Dec 15, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court of India agreed Monday to consider a petition that the requirement of annual confession in the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church violates its members’ privacy rights.
Three members of the Church, which is part of Oriental Orthodoxy, have petitioned the court after some of the Church’s priests allegedly used information learned in the confessional for blackmailing and both sexual and monetary exploitation.
India’s Supreme Court agreed to hear the case Dec. 14.
The petitioners called the Church’s requirement of confession a “serious intrusion into the privacy of a person.”
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church codified its constitution in 1934. That constitution requires that all Church members over 21 years go to Confession annually. It also requires that a confession register be kept in each parish.
The petitioners argue that the requirement of confession violates the protection of life and personal liberty and freedom of conscience and free profession found in articles 21 and 25 of the Constitution of India.
They also took issue with the Church’s ability to remove members from its registers for failure to support the Church financially.
Fr. Johns Abraham Konatt, a spokesman for the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, said that “confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Church.
He told UCA News, “There might be a few instances of misuse of confession, but that does not mean that the sacrament should be done away with.”
The petition comes amid reports of some priests using the confessional to exploit women for sexual purposes, and men for monetary purposes.
In mid-2018, five priests of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church were accused of using confession to blackmail and sexually abuse a 34 year-old married woman. They have since been suspended.
At the time, a proposal to abolish confessions in all Churches in the nation was put forth by India’s National Commission for Women, a government advisory agency.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay said at the time that he was “shocked” by the proposed ban.
“(The ban) betrays a total lack of understanding of the nature, meaning, sanctity and importance of this Sacrament for our people; and also an ignorance of the strict laws of the Church to prevent any abuse,” he said. Such a ban would be a violation of the freedom of religion guaranteed by the country’s constitution, Gracias said.
“Millions of people from all over the world, over the centuries, have testified to the spiritual benefit of this Sacrament and to the grace, pardon and peace they have experienced as a result of receiving this Sacrament,” he added. “I am confident the Government will totally ignore this absurd demand from the Commission.”
According to local media, the National Commission for Minorities vice-chairman George Kurian also criticised the proposal during a TV discussion, calling it unconstitutional and saying that it unnecessarily provokes division and misunderstanding among minority communities.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches rejected the 451 Council of Chalcedon, and its followers were historically considered monophysites, those who believe Christ has only one nature, by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is based in the Indian state of Kerala, where most of its dioceses are located.
The government of India is officially secular, while nearly 80 percent of the population identifies as Hindu. About 2.3 percent of India’s population is as Christian.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom earlier this year recommended that India be designated by the State Department as a “country of particular concern” — a designation reserved for the worst violators of religious freedom or the countries where the worst abuses are taking place and the governments do not stop them. USCIRF had not recommended India for the CPC list since 2004.
Christians have been subject to increasing attacks by mobs in India, with national and state governments failing to protect them and administer justice to perpetrators. A 2020 Open Doors report noted at least 447 verified incidents of violence and hate crimes committed against Christians in India in a year, many of them by radical Hindus.
Pope Francis arriving at the meeting with bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and catechists in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Dili, East Timor, Sept. 10, 2024. / Vatican Media
Thanks for the beautiful pictures of the rich and unique aspects of the Mongolian culture.