Mongolia's Catholics: 300 and Growing
Bishop Sees Hope as Government Opens Up to Democracy

Mongolia's only Catholic bishop says there is more hope for the Church in the country as the government opens up to democracy.

"When the first Catholic missionaries, one from Belgium and two from the Philippines , arrived here in 1992, almost nobody in Mongolia had ever heard about Jesus," Bishop Wenceslao Padilla said during a recent visit to Aid to the Church in Need.

"Since then, we have established three parishes with currently about 300 baptized Mongolian Catholics," said the 56-year-old prelate.

"And now that the government is opening up to democracy, there is much hope for the Catholic Church in this vast country," he added. "This year, we expect 80 to 100 new baptisms."

Mongolia , which is about the size of Alaska , has a population of 2.7 million, according to one estimate.

Bishop said "But for evangelization, much patience is needed. Today, 56 missionaries from 14 African, Asian, European and Latin American countries are active in Mongolia ."

The “Chaldean Church” has evangelized Mongolia since the middle ages, in fact, after the occupation of Baghdad and the fall of the Abbasid Empire 1258 D.C. by the Mongolian troops, a new patriarch was elected to govern the Chaldean Church of the East with the name: Mar Yab Alaha III the Mongolian.