ShareThisBy: Agenzia Fides
‘The proclamation of Christ returned to Mongolia 15 years ago, but the Lord has always been with the Mongol people who today receive the Gospel with faith and hope’ – from an interview by Agenzia Fides with Bishop Wenceslao S. Padilla CICM, Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar. Bishop Padilla is both the first bishop ever in Mongolia and the first Filipino to be appointed bishop of a jurisdiction overseas. This interview was published on 9 April and is reproduced with permission. Fides, , is a service of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and is based in the Vatican.
ULAANBAATAR (Agenzia Fides) - In just 15 years of active presence, the small Catholic community of Mongolia has made great progress. With the proclamation of the Gospel and the love of God, made manifest mainly through the testimony and help of their brethren, the number of conversions and baptisms among youth and adults continues to grow. In 2008, there were about 100 baptisms, and with the baptisms scheduled for May, the total number of faithful will reach 547. This is a positive result for the first missionaries who, 15 years ago, began their missionary adventure to re-evangelize Mongolia. Among them was Father Wenceslao Padilla CICM, a Filipino missionary who lead the missio sui iuris (in 1992) and was later appointed Apostolic Vicar of the Holy See (in 2002), and finally, Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar (in 2003). Agenzia Fides has been able to ask him a few questions on the situation and perspectives of the Church in Mongolia.
Bishop Padilla, what are the roots of Christianity in Mongolia?
The first contacts Mongolia had with the Christian faith began in the 7th century, when missionaries arrived, although in sporadic moments. In the 12th and 14th centuries other missionaries came to the area, such as William Rubruck and the Franciscan Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who travelled into the heart of Asia, but without being able to perform much active evangelization work. There were also positive influences in Mongolia from the Catholic missions in China, which were led by great missionaries such as Giovanni da Montecorvino and Matteo Ricci. However, in the 20th century, the Communist regime tried all they could to wipe out any sign of religion from society. The true birth of the Church in Mongolia, therefore, was 16 years ago, in 1992, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the atheist Communist regime. The evangelization effort started afresh, as nothing in terms of structures, communities, or pastoral workers had remained.
The author, who is majoring in social work at the University of Negros Occidental–Recoletos (UNO-R), Bacolod City, tells how her life has been transformed by a group of Sisters who live their Catholic faith with the belief that ‘A Child Redeemed is a Generation Saved’. Richelle has been involved in campus journalism since elementary school.
As a child in the Philippines, there were about 30 Muslim families, mostly traders, who lived in my hometown. Two of these families were family friends, but I never had the courage to learn more about Islam and the lives of my Muslim neighbors.
On Friday 29 February this year, just after celebrating the Qurbana, the Eucharist of the Chaldean Rite of the Catholic Church, in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Mosul (the ancient city of Nineveh), Iraq, Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped. His driver, Ferris, and two bodyguards, Samir and Ramy, each a married man with three children, were shot dead. On 13 March, after a phone call, the body of the archbishop was found in a shallow grave. It wasn’t clear if he had been directly murdered or if his death was due to the lack of medicine that he needed because of his poor health. He seemed to have been dead for about a week. Pope Benedict expressed his distress, describing what happened as ‘an act of inhuman violence that offends the dignity of the human being and seriously harms the . . . coexistence among the beloved Iraqi people’. 
It was autumn of 1983 when I had a chat outside our little church with one of the prominent ladies in the parish of Koshi in Kumamoto City. She was worried about her teenage daughter, who suffered from some mild physical handicaps. I asked her if she ever went before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and shared her worries with Him. ‘What?’ she said in a shocked voice. ‘Surely you don’t believe that!’
