Pope begins visit to Mongolia

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 1 - Pope Francis landed in Mongolian capital Ulan Bator on Friday to begin his 43rd Apostolic Journey abroad.
    He attended a brief welcome ceremony at the airport and is set to rest for the remains of the day after the long flight from Rome.
    His official engagements for the four-day visit start on Saturday.
    "To go to Mongolia is to go to a [numerically] small people in a vast land," the Argentine pontiff told reporters on the papal flight.
    "Mongolia seems to have no end, and its inhabitants are few, a people few in number of a great culture. I think it will do us good to understand this silence, so vast, so big.
    "It will help us understand what it means: not intellectually but with the senses. Mongolia is to be understood with the senses".
    The pope sent a telegram to Chinese President Xi Jinping as the papal flight went through Chinese air space.
    "I send greetings of good wishes to your excellency and the people of China as I pass through your country's airspace en route to Mongolia," the pope said. "Assuring you of my prayers for the well-being of the nation, I invoke upon all of you the divine blessings of unity and peace." Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that Beijing wants to "strengthen reciprocal trust" after the pope sent the greeting. (ANSA).