This pope was the first to go to Mongolia
Hope, mercy and murders in Ulaanbaatar
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We are on Spring Break but this updated repost from August 30, 2023 is sadly relevant this week, with the passing of Pope Francis.
The Big Story:
Nearly two years ago, Pope Francis became the first head of the Catholic Church in its 2,000-year history to visit Mongolia, a vast, rugged nation with just 1,450 Catholics. It came amid rising strategic interest in resource-rich Mongolia, which the Harvard International Review was calling ‘Minegolia’. The pope’s visit came three months after Emmanuel Macron made the first trip by a French president to Mongolia. Mongolia was already in focus in the western world with the United States counting significant investment1 in the country’s mining industry. So much so that Mongolia was even calling the US its “third neighbor” and its Harvard-educated prime minister visited Washington in August 2023.
The Backstory:
Mongolia is not a particularly religious country. Roughly 60% of its 3.3 million people identify as religious, of which nearly 90% espouse Buddhist sympathies, according to the US State Department. So why did Pope Francis spend four days in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar? Some said it was because the Pope wanted the Roman Catholic Church to be seen as a 21st century bridge-building institution committed to inter-faith dialogue. Historically, the Christian faith had a presence in Central Asia since the 7th century and the Vatican established diplomatic ties with the Mongols’ transcontinental empire in the 13th century.
But did this papal visit have geopolitical implications? Mongolia lies “between the bear and the dragon with the eagle overhead”, i.e., Russia to the north, China to the south and with America as an ally. It wants to present itself as an international hub between Europe and Asia. In 2023, there was some speculation2 Mongolia could facilitate talks between Ukraine and Russia. This, because of the four Mongolian presidents who studied abroad, two were trained in Russia and two in Ukraine. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent three years in Mongolia as a child. Whatever happened or didn’t, Mongolia remains worth watching. In 2016, it became the first country to adopt a pioneering postal address system3 developed by British startup What3Words.4
In the world of books, Mongolia has mostly featured in pulp crime fiction (think L Ron Hubbard), travel accounts and portraits of its national hero Genghis Khan (see bonus picks).
This Week, Those Books:
A detective series set in post-Soviet Mongolia
The Pope’s exploration of the word at the heart of his lifelong journey of faith: mercy.
* The Shadow Walker
* The Adversary
* The Outcast
By: Michael Walters
Publisher: Quercus
Year: 2006, 2007, 2008
This riveting trilogy features Mongolian police officers Nergui and Doripalam.
The strapline on the cover of The Shadow Walker says “murder at the edge of the world". The series offers fascinating glimpses of a little-known country and culture. We find a sparsely populated land – “little more than one person per square kilometer of land” – where half the people still live in traditional ger tents. The in-flight meal on Mongolia’s national airline MIAT consists “entirely of a selection of meats – cured, roast, perhaps boiled – accompanied by an apparently unending supply of miniature Mongolian vodkas.”
The first book starts with a drunk discovering a body in an Ulanbaatar side street. Unidentifiable, with head and hands removed, it’s followed by similarly gruesome murders. In a country where the single most common crime is “the theft of cattle”, is Mongolia's first serial killer on the loose?
When the mutilated body of a British businessman is found, British policeman Drew McLeish is despatched to Mongolia. The case takes McLeish and Nergui out into the vast Gobi Desert, looking into the race to profit from Mongolia’s vast mineral reserves.
The Name of God is Mercy: A conversation with Andrea Tornielli
By: Pope Francis (author), Oonagh Stransky (Translator)
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2016
The Pope’s first book after he assumed the office in 2013, this conversation with a veteran Vatican journalist became a New York Times bestseller. It contains some pointed questions, not least “When you think of merciful priests you have met, who comes to mind?”
Choice quotes:
“Sin is more than a stain. Sin is a wound; it needs to be treated, healed.”
“If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?…I am glad that we are talking about ‘homosexual people’ because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies”.
BONUS: Honourable mentions
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Mongolia trade summary from the Office of the US Trade Representative. https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/mongolia#:%7E:text=Mongolia%27s%20economy%2C%20traditionally%20based%20on,uranium%2C%20tin%2C%20and%20tungsten
The War in Ukraine Could Formally End in Mongolia, The Diplomat, March 23, 2023. https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/the-war-in-ukraine-could-formally-end-in-mongolia/
Mongolia's Post Office to Use Pioneering Three-Word Addresses to Deliver Mail. ABC News, June 15, 2016. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/mongolias-post-office-pioneering-word-addresses-deliver-mail/story?id=39871632
what3words. https://developer.what3words.com/public-api