(ANS - Ulaan Baatar) - The third and final leg of the journey to discover the Salesian situation in Mongolia leads us to a look at the future. After 13 years, the work that remains to be done is still enormous, but the missionaries' motivation to live a "high standard of Christian living" remains intact.

"Apart from our being able to operate freely within our own premises in the parish, in our schools and the orphanage the Preventive System is missing religion. It's like a three-legged stool with one leg missing, says Fr Carlos Villegas, leader of the Salesian missionaries' expedition in the country. When the laws of the land embrace Reason and Loving kindness, but don't give Religion a free run, you can't work in depth so that people can be 'fully alive'."

Another challenge for the Salesians is isolation, "but not loneliness - as Fr Villegas asserts - because isolation has to do with the geographical or social reality, but loneliness does not exist for those who cultivate a deep faith and have a healthy awareness of their own consecration."

Natural challenges that have to be faced include rampant urbanisation, with about one-third of the population concentrated in the capital alone, and the high rate of unemployment, a result of the post-socialist society that has the resources, but does not have the expertise to exploit them properly.

But there is ample room for development in the pastoral area of communication. The Mongolians love reading, and the country has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. So far, however, the Salesians have not managed to master the language and become a real communicative power and we must therefore move in this field, so loved by Don Bosco and St Francis de Sales.

Another important task to be pursued is the fostering of an authentic faith in the Mongols. Fr Villegas says with an amount of bitterness: "I smiled with frustration when one of our Mongol staff, after translating a book about Don Bosco, told me: 'I love Don Bosco, but not Jesus.'" Similar inconsistencies, and other misunderstandings and suspicions about what is Christian, have deep roots and often depend on the bad reputation Christianity has acquired as a result of a preaching in the past that was very aggressive, especially on the Protestant side.

But Fr Villegas does not hide the fact that to do good missionary work, in such a context, the missionaries have to show a clarity and a commitment that is out of the ordinary: "It is true that health is an immediate criterion for the mission ad extra and inter-gentes. But it's not the bitter cold of Mongolia, nor the food, nor the Mongolian people or culture or language that can decide the anticipated return of the missionaries. The difficulty lies in living a high standard of Christian life."

The missionary venture is nonetheless up and running, and it hinges in the first place on  "interaction". Fr Villegas concludes: "the lack of interaction generates ignorance and with ignorance comes suspicion and animosity. But after 13 years of interacting with hundreds of parents, students and government officials, we see it: they come to us with a lot of prejudice but when they leave, especially the students who have been with us for three years, they go away not only sad but with admiration, and with the desire to recommend their family and friends to send their children to grow up here."

Published on 05/07/2013