Pope Francis celebrated the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday (September 8, 2024) as he travelled to the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea, bringing with him a ton of medicine and toys and a message of love overcoming violence for the people who live there.

The Pope flew aboard a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 transport plane from Port Moresby to Vanimo, on the northwest coast of the South Pacific nation, close to the border with Indonesia. There, he met with the local Catholic community and the missionaries from his native Argentina who have been ministering to them.

A crowd of an estimated 20,000 people gathered on the field in front of the Vanimo cathedral singing and dancing when Pope Francis arrived, and he promptly put on a feathered headdress that had been presented to him.

In remarks from a raised stage, the Pope praised the church workers who go out to try to spread the faith. But he urged the faithful to work closer to home at being good to one another and putting an end to the tribal rivalries and violence that are a regular part of the culture in Papua New Guinea.

He urged them to be like an orchestra, so that all members of the community can come together harmoniously to overcome rivalries.

Doing so, he said, would help to end personal, family and tribal divisions “to drive out fear, superstition and magic from people’s hearts, to put an end to destructive behaviors such as violence, infidelity, exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, evils which imprison and take away the happiness of so many of our brothers and sisters, even in this country.”

It was a reference to the tribal violence over land and other disputes that have long characterised the country’s culture but have grown more lethal in recent years. Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea to urge an end to the violence, including gender-based violence, and for a sense of civic responsibility and cooperation to prevail.

Earlier in the day, an estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital, Port Moresby, for the Pope’s morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.

In his homily, the Pope told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.

“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” he said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”

After the Mass, the Pope boarded the C-130 with just a few aides and his security detail. On board was also the golf cart popemobile he was using in Vanimo, as well as a ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

The aircraft, which is based at Australia’s base in Port Moresby, was being used both because of its cargo capacity and because the small airport in Vanimo doesn’t have an ambulift, the wheelchair elevator that Francis now needs to get on and off planes. By flying in on a C-130, the Pope can disembark via the ramp, Vatican officials said.

The Pope has long prioritised the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is actually more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, he has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.

Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, where the jungle meets the sea, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.

Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan, but was prevented from going because of his poor health.

Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.

There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animism and sorcery.

On Saturday, Pope Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition”.

“I think too of the marginalised and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

Pope Francis’ visit to Vanimo was the highlight of his visit to Papua New Guinea, the second leg of his four-nation tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania. After first stopping in Indonesia, the Pope heads on Monday (September 9, 2024) to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.

Pope Francis waves as he is farewelled at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Indonesia, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Indonesia arrested seven people for making “terror threats” online against Pope Francis during his visit to the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country this week, police said on Friday (September 6, 2024).

The 87-year-old pontiff made Southeast Asia’s biggest economy the first stop of an arduous Asia-Pacific tour, delivering a message of religious unity to counter extremism and intolerance.

The suspects were arrested in cities around the capital Jakarta, and the provinces of West Sumatra and Bangka Belitung, Indonesia’s elite counter-terrorism unit Densus 88 spokesman Aswin Siregar told reporters.

They are accused of posting statements and images online that threatened bomb attacks on the pope’s public meetings in Jakarta.

“Densus 88 has taken legal action against seven individuals… who made threats in the form of propaganda or terror threats via social media in response to the pope’s arrival,” Mr. Aswin told reporters.

“There was also a threat to set fire to the locations,” he added.

His schedule included visits to Southeast Asia’s biggest mosque, Jakarta’s cathedral, the presidential palace and the national football stadium.

The beliefs of the suspects were not disclosed by authorities but Indonesia has long struggled with Islamist militancy.

Bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people and were the deadliest attacks in the country’s history.

Security has been stepped up for the pope’s visit, with roads around key sites where he is scheduled to visit being re-routed or closed.

A security detail of around 4,000 personnel, including snipers, soldiers, police and his security team, protected him before he departed for the rest of his trip in Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.

Grand Imam of Istiqlal Mosque Nasaruddin Umar kisses Pope Francis following an interreligious meeting with religious leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

Pope Francis joined the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque in pledging to work together to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the environment on Thursday (September 5, 2024), issuing a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of the Pope’s visit to Indonesia.

In an encounter rich with symbolic meaning and personal touches, Pope Francis travelled to Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal Mosque for an interfaith gathering with representatives of the six religions that are officially recognised in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

There, he and the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar, stood at the ground-level entrance to the “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underpass which connects the mosque compound with the neighbouring Catholic cathedral, Our Lady of the Assumption.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, has held out the tunnel as a tangible sign of its commitment to religious freedom, which is enshrined in the Constitution but has been challenged by repeated instances of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.

Approaching the elevator to the tunnel, Pope Francis said it was a potent sign of how different religious traditions “have a role to play in helping everyone pass through the tunnels of life with our eyes turned towards the light.”

He encouraged all Indonesians of every religious tradition to “walk in search of God and contribute to building open societies, founded on reciprocal respect and mutual love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justifiable.”

The Pope travelled to Indonesia, at the start of an 11-day, four-nation trip to Asia and Oceania, to encourage Indonesia to combat religiously inspired violence and pledge the Catholic Church’s commitment to greater fraternity.

The encounter at the mosque showed the personal side of that policy, with Pope Francis and Imam Umar — the aged pope and the youthful imam — showing a clear affinity for one another. As Francis was leaving, he grasped Imam Umar’s hand, kissed it and held it to his cheek.

The Pope has made improving Catholic-Muslim ties a hallmark of his papacy and has prioritised travel to majority Muslim nations to further the agenda.

During a 2019 visit to the Gulf, Pope Francis and the imam of Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni learning, launched a “Human Fraternity” movement calling for greater Christian-Muslim efforts to promote peace around the world. More recently, the Pope travelled to Najaf, Iraq, in 2021 to visit the top Shiite cleric, who delivered a message of peaceful coexistence.

The new initiative launched Thursday, called “The Istiqlal Declaration,” now becomes another pillar of Pope Francis’ interfaith push. It was signed by the Pope and Imam Umar at a formal ceremony in the tent on the Istiqlal mosque compound. The other religious representatives at the encounter didn’t co-sign it but were listed by organisers as having “accompanied” it.

The document said religion should never be abused to justify conflict or violence, but should instead be used to resolve conflicts and protect and promote human dignity. It also called for “decisive action” to protect the environment and its resources, blaming man-made actions for the current climate crisis.

“The human exploitation of creation, our common home, has contributed to climate change, leading to various destructive consequences such as natural disasters, global warming and unpredictable weather patterns,” it read. “This ongoing environmental crisis has become an obstacle to the harmonious coexistence of peoples.”

Fighting climate change has been an important priority for the Argentine Jesuit pope, who has issued encyclicals insisting on the moral dimension of caring for God’s creation. The climate issue is of existential importance to Indonesia, a tropical archipelago stretching across the equator and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest and a variety of endangered wildlife and plants.

Umar, the grand imam, recalled in his remarks to the gathering that the Istiqlal mosque was designed by a Christian architect and is used for a variety of social and educational programs that benefit everyone, not just Muslims.

“Since I have served as the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, I have strongly emphasised that the Istiqlal Mosque is not only a house of worship for Muslims, but also a big house for humanity,” he said. “We hope and have the principle that humanity is one, so anyone can enter and benefit.”

Vatican City:

Pope Francis decried the state of democracy and warned against “populists” during a short visit to Trieste in Italy’s northeast on Sunday ahead of a 12-day trip to Asia — the longest of his papacy.

“Democracy is not in good health in the world today,” Francis said during a speech at the city’s convention centre to close a national Catholic event.

Without naming any countries, the pope warned against “ideological temptations and populists” on the day that France holds the second round of a snap parliamentary vote that looks set to see the far-right National Rally (RN) party take the largest share of the vote.

“Ideologies are seductive. Some people compare them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin: they seduce but lead you to deny yourself,” he said in reference to the German fairytale.

Ahead of last month’s European parliament elections, bishops in several countries also warned about the rise of populism and nationalism, with far-right parties already holding the reins to power in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Francis also urged people to “move away from polarisations that impoverish” and hit out at “self-referential power”.

After Venice in April and Verona in May, the half-day trip to Trieste, a city of 200,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic Sea that borders Slovenia, marked the third one within Italy this year for the 87-year-old pontiff, who has suffered increasing health problems in recent years.

Since travelling to the French city of Marseille in September 2023, the Argentine Jesuit has limited himself to domestic travel.

But he plans to spend nearly two weeks in Asia in September visiting Indonesia, Singapore and the islands of Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

He arrived in Trieste shortly before 9:00 am (0600 GMT) and was due to meet with various groups from the religious and academic spheres, along with migrants and the disabled.

The papal visit is due to conclude with a mass in the city’s main public square before he departs for the Vatican in the early afternoon.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Pope Francis. File photo
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Pope Francis will preside over an interfaith meeting in a mosque in the world’s largest predominantly Muslim country during a four-nation Asian visit in September that will be the longest and most complicated foreign trip of his pontificate.

The Vatican on Friday released the itinerary for the Pope’s September 2-13 trip to Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The packed schedule makes clear that the 87-year-old pontiff, who has battled health problems and is increasingly reliant on a wheelchair, has no plans to slow down.

After a day of rest upon arrival in Jakarta on September 3, the Pope will launch into a typically rigorous round of protocol visits to the four countries’ heads of state and government, and speeches to diplomats and meetings with clergy and public Masses in each location.

In Jakarta, he will preside over an interfaith meeting at the capital’s Istiqlal Mosque.

Sprinkled in the mix are encounters with young people, poor and disabled people, elderly people and the Pope’s regular meetings with Jesuit confreres.

The trip was originally planned for 2020 but was called off because of the COVID-19 pandemic. At 11 full days, it’s the longest of the Pope’s 11-year papacy, outpacing by a few days some of his long trips to the Americas and recalling some of the strenuous, globe-hopping trips of St. John Paul II.

It will bring the Argentine Jesuit to the world’s most populous predominantly Muslim nation, Indonesia, as well as the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, where the Catholic Church wields enormous influence. In East Timor, however, the Pope may also have to reckon with the legacy of independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo.

Next trip

After he returns to Rome in mid-September, he has a four-day visit to Belgium before the end of the month, the only other foreign trip that has been confirmed for the year.

File picture of Pope Francis
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The alleged incident is said to have happened on May 20, when the Italian Bishops Conference opened a four-day assembly with a non-public meeting with the pontiff

Pope Francis used a derogatory term towards the LGBT community as he reiterated in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops that gay people should not be allowed to become priests, Italian media reported on Monday.

La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest circulation dailies, both quoted the pope as saying seminaries, or priesthood colleges, are already too full of “frociaggine“, a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as “faggotness”.

The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.

La Repubblica attributed its story to several unspecified sources, while Corriere said it was backed up by a few, unnamed bishops, who suggested the pope, as an Argentine, might have not realised that the Italian term he used was offensive.

Political gossip website Dagospia was the first to report on the alleged incident, said to have happened on May 20, when the Italian Bishops Conference opened a four-day assembly with a non-public meeting with the pontiff.

Pope Francis, who is 87, has so far been credited with leading the Roman Catholic Church into taking a more welcoming approach towards the LGBT community.

In 2013, at the start of his papacy, he famously said, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”, while last year he allowed priests to bless members of same-sex couples, triggering substantial conservative backlash.

Nevertheless, he delivered a similar message on gay seminarians – minus the reported swear word – when he met Italian bishops in 2018, telling them to carefully vet priesthood applicants and reject any suspected homosexuals.

In a 2005 document, released under Francis’s late predecessor Benedict XVI, the Vatican said the Church could admit into the priesthood those who had clearly overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years.

The document said practicing homosexuals and those with “deep-seated” gay tendencies and those who “support the so-called gay culture” should be barred.

Vatican City:

Pope Francis used a highly derogatory term towards the LGBT community as he reiterated in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops that gay people should not be allowed to become priests, Italian media reported on Monday.

La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest circulation dailies, both quoted the pope as saying seminaries, or priesthood colleges, are already too full of “frociaggine”, a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as “faggottness”.

The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.

La Repubblica attributed its story to several unspecified sources, while Corriere said it was backed up by a few, unnamed bishops, who suggested the pope, as an Argentine, might have not realised that the Italian term he used was offensive.

Political gossip website Dagospia was the first to report on the alleged incident, said to have happened on May 20, when the Italian Bishops Conference opened a four-day assembly with a non-public meeting with the pontiff.

Pope Francis, who is 87, has so far been credited with leading the Roman Catholic Church into taking a more welcoming approach towards the LGBT community.

In 2013, at the start of his papacy, he famously said, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”, while last year he allowed priests to bless members of same-sex couples, triggering substantial conservative backlash.

Nevertheless, he delivered a similar message on gay seminarians – minus the reported swear word – when he met Italian bishops in 2018, telling them to carefully vet priesthood applicants and reject any suspected homosexuals.

In a 2005 document, released under Pope Francis’s late predecessor Benedict XVI, the Vatican said the Church could admit into the priesthood those who had clearly overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years.

The document said practicing homosexuals and those with “deep-seated” gay tendencies and those who “support the so-called gay culture” should be barred.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Pope Francis challenged world leaders on October 4 to commit to binding targets to slow climate change before it’s too late, warning that God’s increasingly warming creation is fast reaching a “point of no return.”

In an update to his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, Pope heightened the alarm about the “irreversible” harm to people and planet already under way and lamented that once again, the world’s poor and most vulnerable are paying the highest price.

“We are now unable to halt the enormous damage we have caused. We barely have time to prevent even more tragic damage,” Pope warned.

He took square aim at the United States, noting that per-capita emissions in the U.S. are twice as high as China and seven times greater than the average in poor countries. While individual, household efforts are helping, “we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he said.

The document, “Praise God,” was released on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the pontiff’s nature-loving namesake, and was aimed at spurring negotiators to commit to binding climate targets at the next round of U.N. talks in Dubai.

Using precise scientific data, sharp diplomatic arguments and a sprinkling of theological reasoning, Pope delivered a moral imperative for the world to transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy with measures that that are “efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.”

“What is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world,” he said.

As it is, Pope’s 2015 encyclical “Praise Be” was a watershed moment for the Catholic Church, the first time a Pope had used one of his most authoritative teaching documents to recast the climate debate in moral terms.

In that text, which has been cited by Presidents, patriarchs and premiers and spurred an activist movement in the the church, Pope called for a bold cultural revolution to correct a “structurally perverse” economic system where the rich exploit the poor, turning Earth into an “immense pile of filth.”

Even though encyclicals are meant to stand the test of time, Pope said he felt an update to his original was necessary because “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

He excoriated people, including those in the church, who doubt mainstream climate science about heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, sarcastically deflating their arguments and showing his impatience with their profit-at-all-cost mentality.

Shaming them for their reliance on “allegedly solid scientific data,” he said the doubters’ arguments about potential job losses from a clean energy transition were bunk. And he cited data showing that increased emissions and the corresponding rise in global temperatures have accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last 50 years.

“It is no longer possible to doubt the human – ‘anthropic’ – origin of climate change,” he asserted.

While acknowledging that “certain apocalyptic diagnoses” may not be grounded, he said inaction is no longer an option. The devastation is already under way, he said, including with some already “irreversible” harm done to biodiversity and species loss that will only snowball unless urgent action is taken now.

“Small changes can cause greater ones, unforeseen and perhaps already irreversible, due to factors of inertia,” he noted. “This would end up precipitating a cascade of events having a snowball effect. In such cases, it is always too late, since no intervention will be able to halt a process once begun.”

“Praise God,” was issued ahead of the next round of U.N. climate talks which begin November 30 in Dubai. Just as he did with his 2015 encyclical “Praise Be,” which was penned before the start of the Paris climate conference, Pope aimed to cast the issue of global warming in stark moral terms to spur courageous decisions by world leaders.

In the 2015 landmark Paris Agreement, countries of the world agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) or at least two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. It’s already warmed about 1.1 degrees (two degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s.

Pope said that it was clear that the Paris target will be breached and will soon reach three degrees Celsius, and that already the effects are obvious, with oceans warming, glaciers melting and the world registering record heat waves and extreme weather events.

“Even if we do not reach this point of no return, it is certain that the consequences would be disastrous and precipitous measures would have to be taken, at enormous cost and with grave and intolerable economic and social effects,” he warned.

Since 2015, the world has spewed at least 288 billion metric tonnes (317 billion U.S. tonnes) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air, not including this year’s emissions, according to the scientists at Global Carbon Project. In August 2015, there were 399 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air and in August 2023 it was up to 420 parts per million, a 5% jump.

The record-hot summer of 2023 is one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) warmer than the summer of 2015, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Antarctica and Greenland have lost more than 2,100 billion metric tonnes (2,300 billion U.S. tonnes) of land ice, since the summer of 2015, according to NASA.

And in the United States alone, there have been 152 climate or weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage since the pope’s first climate message, with costs adjusted for inflation, according to NOAA. Pope concluded his document by noting the emissions rate in the U.S. and shaming it to do better.

“’Praise God’ is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies,” he wrote.

Pope Francis attends a press conference on board an airplane on his flight back from Marseille to Rome on September 23, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pope Francis has labelled the weapons industry as being a key driver of the “martyrdom” of Ukraine’s people in Russia’s war, saying even the withholding of weapons now is going to continue their misery.

Francis appeared to refer to Poland’s recent announcement that it is no longer sending arms to Ukraine when he was asked about the war during brief remarks to reporters while returning home from Marseille, France.

Also Read | Russia says a Ukrainian missile strike hit its Black Sea Fleet headquarters, a serviceman is missing

Francis acknowledged he was frustrated that the Vatican’s diplomatic initiatives hadn’t borne much fruit. But he said behind the Russia-Ukraine conflict was also the weapons industry.

He described the paradox that was keeping Ukraine a “martyred people” — that at first many countries gave Ukraine weapons and now are taking them away. Francis has long denounced the weapons industry as “merchants of death,” but he has also asserted the right of countries to defend themselves.

“I’ve seen now that some countries are pulling back, and aren’t giving weapons,” he said.

“This will start a process where the martyrdom is the Ukrainian people, certainly. And this is bad.” It was an apparent reference to the announcement by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieck that Poland was no longer sending arms to Ukraine as part of a trade dispute.

“We cannot play with the martyrdom of the Ukrainian people,” Francis said. “We have to help resolve things in ways that are possible.” “Not to make illusions that tomorrow the two leaders will go out together to eat, but to do whatever is possible,” he said.

In other comments, Francis spoke about his two-day visit to Marseille, where he exhorted Europe to be more welcoming to migrants.

Francis said he was heartened that there is greater consciousness about the plight of migrants 10 years after he made his first trip as pope to the Italian island of Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe’s migrant debate. But he said the “reign of terror” they endure at the hands of smugglers hasn’t gotten any better.

Francis recalled that when he became pope, “I didn’t even know where Lampedusa was.” The Sicilian island, which is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, is the destination of choice for migrant smugglers and has seen frequent shipwrecks off its shores. Last week, the island was overwhelmed when nearly 7,000 migrants arrived in one day, more than the resident population.

Francis, who was elected pope in 2013, said he had heard some stories about the problems on Lampedusa in his first months as pope “and in prayer I heard You need to go there”.

The visit has come to epitomize the importance of the migrant issue for Francis, who has gone on to make some memorable gestures of solidarity, including in 2016 when he brought back a dozen Syrian Muslim migrants on his plane after visiting a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece.

Ulaanbaatar:

Pope Francis on Sunday told Catholics in China to be “good Christians and good citizens”, using his visit to Mongolia to help ease tensions between the Vatican and Beijing.

Following a mass before the scant Catholic population in Mongolia’s capital of Ulaanbaatar, Francis turned his attention to officially-atheist China, some of whose citizens had flown in for the Pope’s visit.

Flanked by Hong Kong’s current bishop, Stephen Chow, and its bishop emeritus, Cardinal John Tong Hon, the 86-year-old pope said they joined him to send “a warm greeting to the noble Chinese people”.

“To the people I wish the best,” said the pope. “To Chinese Catholics, I ask you to be good Christians and good citizens.”

The unscripted comments were Francis’s latest attempt to reassure China’s Communist government, which is wary of the Church’s presence in its country.

On Saturday, Francis appeared to send a more tacit message, telling a gathering of Catholic missionaries that governments had “nothing to fear” from the Catholic Church.

“Governments and secular institutions have nothing to fear from the Church’s work of evangelisation, for she has no political agenda to advance,” said the pontiff, without mentioning China explicitly.

In choosing to visit the vast, isolated nation of Mongolia sandwiched between China and Russia, the pope’s goals were twofold.

On one hand, the trip showed the Jesuit’s desire to bring the Church’s message to remote, largely ignored areas where Catholicism is young and unfamiliar.

But looming over the trip has been a more strategic, geopolitical objective — that of thawing frosty relations with Beijing.

In the crowd at the mass held in a newly built ice hockey arena was a Chinese woman who had travelled from the northwestern city of Xi’an.

Telling AFP it was “rather difficult to come here”, she described how the two organisers of her group’s pilgrimage had been detained back in China.

“Let me tell you, I feel so ashamed to hold the (Chinese) national flag,” she said.

“But I need to hold it and let the Pope know how difficult it is for us.”

Benefit to society

Earlier Sunday, Francis assembled leaders of different religions operating in Mongolia in an intimate theatre — designed in the round shape of the nomadic “ger” dwelling — nestled in the low mountains encircling the city.

“Religious traditions, for all their distinctiveness and diversity, have impressive potential for the benefit of society as a whole,” the Argentine Jesuit told the group, which included Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and representatives of Shamanism, among others.

Following his speech, a head monk at a Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, Natsagdorj Damdinsuren, said the pope’s visit “proves the solidarity of the human race declaring peace together”.

“I am just a humble Buddhist monk but for me, war and conflict are the most tragic events of our time. I guess other religions agree with me,” Damdinsuren said.

‘Really genuine’

In the ice rink’s stands, Mongolian student Nomin Batbayar said Francis’s focus on interreligious dialogue recalled “how my ancestors in the 13th century felt, with Buddhism, Islam, Shamanism, Christianity in the same city, living peacefully with each other”.

“I just feel he is a really genuine person, that’s why all these one billion people around the world believe in him, supporting him,” said Batbayar, 18.

“China isn’t really supporting him, but their people are here today.”

A Chinese woman at the mass from Hebei told AFP she felt “so blessed and happy to be able to be here and see the pope”.

“To have our own religion doesn’t mean that we are against our country,” she added.

“We actually pray for our country.”

Freedom of religion in Mongolia, which became a democracy in 1992, is in sharp contrast to neighbouring China.

The Holy See renewed a deal last year with Beijing that allows both sides a say in appointing bishops in China.

Critics have called the move a dangerous concession in exchange for a presence in the country.

Asked about the pope’s apparent overtures to Beijing, Hong Kong Bishop Stephen Chow told AFP the pontiff’s message was intended “for the whole world”.

“The Church now… really (has) no intentions to become political and that’s important to us,” he said.

“Otherwise we lose our credit as an institution talking about love and truth.”

‘Pilgrim of friendship’

Calling himself a “pilgrim of friendship”, Pope Francis extolled Mongolia’s virtues during his visit, but warned of the dangers of corruption and environmental degradation, two major challenges faced by the nation.

The capital suffers from some of the world’s worst air quality and an embezzlement scandal sparked street protests last year.

Vast swathes of the country are also at risk of desertification due to climate change, overgrazing and mining.

There are about 1,400 Catholics in Mongolia out of a population of 3.3 million people. Only 25 are priests, and just two of those are Mongolian.

Buddhism and Shamanism are the main religions followed in Mongolia.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)