MONGOLIA: SALESIANS READY TO TAKE UP NEW
TERRITORY
ROME: 17th August -- According to information
provided recently to 'austraLasia' by Fr. John Ty, former Provincial of Vietnam
(the Salesian Province responsible for the new mission in Mongolia), the
Salesians have been offered their own territory in Mongolia by the Apostolic
Prefecture of the Church in that country and with Government encouragement and
assistance - to the extent of providing some 7 acres of land in the city of
Darhan to the north of the capital Ulaan Baatar (or Ulan Bator). The
Salesians in Mongolia hope to open their new centre in 2004.
The Salesians have been just a handful of years in
Ulan Bator, where a multinational Salesian community (Vietnamese, Filipino,
Czech...) operates an Oratory, work for streetkids, a school and professional
training. The need for an area where Salesians can strike out in their own
right, particularly with work for street kids, has been recognized by the small
Church of Mongolia. Indeed, there are perhaps as few as 150 Catholics in
the country, but the post-communist era has seen Mongolia turn to missionary
development possibilities with some eagerness. Mongolia, surprisingly, has
an urbanised population (63% live in urban areas), a developing economy, and
young people are often the victims of a combination of rural poverty and urban
development.
Mongolia is a country of some 1,565,000 sq kms and
a population of 2,7000,000. Formerly a Buddhist stronghold and theocracy,
the Communist years (largely aligned with the Soviet Union) saw a decrease in
the number of Buddhist monks from a figure of some 100,000 in 1924 to a mere 110
in 1990. The western region of Mongolia has a strong Muslim influence as
well.
