When we think of the country of Mongolia, we think of desolation, a far away country up there somewhere beyond Russia, also close to China. It has a population of 3.2 million and the temperature can dip to -40 degrees Celsius. The Catholic Cathedral in 2003 was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The faith actually arrived in Mongolia in the 14th century, but it never grew. It re-surfaced in 1992, but the Russian Communists suffocated it again. After the Mongolian Revolution of 1990, when Communism was stopped, some missionaries went back to re-start the Catholic faith. But there were no Mongolian Catholics and no prayer books in their language. Even though the missionaries could not speak Mongolian, yet the church continued to sprout. Today there are 1200 Catholics, 33 priests, 44 sisters and many foreign Catholics, especially from the Philippines and South Korea. There are also some lay missionaries from Poland and Scotland. In 2003, they had their first Bishop, Fr. Wenceslaus Padilla.
In 2016, Fr. Enkh Joseph was ordained its first native priest with the support of Korean Catholics on August 28 at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Ulaanbaatar. The Salesians also arrived to evangelize. Half of Mongolia is Buddhist and the other half are atheists. The young Catholics are often persecuted and have to be careful what to post on Facebook, especially Catholic images, but we are grateful for the Catholic presence which helps in charitable and social services to the natives.
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