ULAANBAATAR – One of the world’s smallest Catholic flocks is growing in number, after the Mongolian Church added three native women to its ranks on Christmas Eve, nearly four months after Pope Francis’s visit earlier this year.
There’s no other country on earth where the addition of just three converts would warrant much news. But given that there are only an estimated 1,450 Catholics out of Mongolia’s overall population of 3.3 million, here such a small bump is especially meaningful.
Frigid temperatures and a broken internal heating system did not prevent the faithful from filling up Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Ulaanbaatar on Christmas Eve, most of whom wore heavy winter gear throughout the nearly two-hour liturgy.
