This country has only about 1,300 Catholics but is strategically significant for the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is heading there in August.
Pope Francis first spoke of the possibility of going to Mongolia in a conversation with reporters aboard the papal plane returning from a trip to Africa in February.Pope Francis will make a trip to Mongolia, one of the most far-flung places he has ever visited.
According to the US State Department, about 60 per cent of the population identifies as religious while the remainder has no religious identity. Although the number of Catholics in Mongolia is smaller than most individual parish churches in many countries, the country is significant for the Vatican.It has a long border and close ties with China, where the Vatican is trying to improve the situation of Catholics in the communist country.
Visiting places where Catholics are a minority is also part of Francis' policy of drawing attention to people and problems in what he has called the peripheries of society and of the world.
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