Easter Growth Part II: Mongolia has 25% increase in
Catholics!
ULAAN BAATAR: 16th April 2005 -- Our homilist at Mass
this Easter morning quoted a figure of 80,000 new Catholics in the
United States as of last night. No doubt he has checked and given
us an accurate figure - it sounds impressive enough, but it is a figure
one must put against 68 million existing Catholics, and we also do not
know how many of these new ones were infants.
The one and only Bishop in Mongolia, Bishop
Wenceslaw Padilla, pointed out this week in a 'Fides' item (published
only in Italian), that 70 catechumens were ready for Baptism last
night, Easter Vigil, across the three parishes that now exist in
Mongolia. Given that there are just 300 Catholics already in the
country, that makes it an almost 25% increase. Bishop Padilla
also tells us that most of these new baptisms are amongst the 16-20
year old group. That is even more impressive, knowing they would
have been well prepared!
A number of these new catechumens have been prepared
by our own Salesians - especially in Darkhan where the work is barely a
year old and an entirely new presence of the Church. Sensibly,
they decided that younger catechumens would need at least two years
preparation, so they were preparing 14 older candidates (between age
30-65) for baptism last night. This effectively makes up the first
Church in that city in the North of the country. We don't have
the Salesian figures for catechumens prepared in Ulaan Bataar, but
almost certainly these will include younger catechumens, since the
Salesian work has been established longer in the capital city.
Think that in 1991 there were fewer than 50 Christians (that's all
denominations) in Mongolia. But another sobering thought is that
today there are about 10,000 Christians in Mongolia. Our Catholic
community has some catching up to do, obviously!
There are now a total of 18 priests and 40 sisters
in Mongolia, and 9 Religious Congregations. We know, too, that
the Salesian Sisters have made formal moves to establish a community in
Ulaan Bataar in 2007. Interestingly enough, whereas the SDB
presence is an extension of the Vietnamese province (though it involves
Salesians from many parts of the world other than Vietnam), the FMA
presence will belong juridically to their Korean Province and will be a
missionary gesture recognising 50 years of FMA presence in Korea in
2007.
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