ROME – Legendarily, the Vatican thinks in centuries. There’s a sense in which Pope Francis’s visit to Mongolia this week, the first ever by a pontiff, is a voyage that’s been almost 800 years in the making.
It was in 1245 that an emissary of a pope first made his way to the court of a Mongol emperor, at that time seeking two results: First, the conversion of the Mongols to Catholic Christianity, and second, a promise that the Mongols would no longer menace the Christian kingdoms of Europe.
At the time, Father John of Plano Carpini, a Franciscan missionary who represented Pope Innocent IV, appeared to fail on both counts. The new Kahn, Güyük, sent him packing with a letter rather peremptorily indicating that it was the pope who ought to be submitting to the Mongols, not the other way around.
