An impressive wooden cross stands on the red stage set up for the occasion on the field hockey rink of Ulan Bator's Steppe Arena. Stylized Mongolian-style flowers adorn the sculpture. In their purple outfits and straw hats, young girls, who came specially from Vietnam, await the arrival of Pope Francis on stage. In the blue and yellow bleachers, the faithful from several Asian countries attended the mass celebrated by the head of the Catholic Church on Sunday, September 3, as part of his apostolic visit to Mongolia, a country whose 1,400 Catholics are insufficient in number to fill the 2,000 seats in the stadium alone.

It was clearly China, which shares 4,677 kilometers of border with Mongolia, that the pontiff was thinking of on Sunday, more than any of the other Asian nations represented in the audience. During his traditional popemobile tour before mass, the Argentine pope stopped in front of a large Chinese flag held by faithful who had come to meet him from their home country. An hour and a half later, at the end of mass, the standing pope gave one hand to Cardinal-designate Stephen Chow, bishop of Hong Kong, and the other to Chow's predecessor, Cardinal John Tong. With the two prelates at his side, the pontiff addressed the Chinese faithful, and no doubt also the country's government: "I would like to take this opportunity, in the presence of these two brother bishops (...), to send a heartfelt greeting to the noble Chinese people. (...) I ask Chinese Catholics to be good Christians and good citizens."

In China, Catholics are tightly controlled and even repressed by the authorities. To try to improve their lot, the Vatican under Francis has endeavored to find common ground with the Beijing government. In 2018, the two sides reached an agreement – renewed twice since – whose letter remains secret but which institutes a shared procedure for appointing bishops. Its aim is to bring closer together the official Church, whose hierarchs were appointed by Beijing, and the underground Church, whose prelates were chosen by Rome.

Since his election, Francis has also repeatedly expressed his desire to be able to visit China one day, and has offered the Beijing authorities signs of his willingness to do so. His recommendation to the country's faithful to be "good citizens" seems to fit into this framework. "The idea is to reassure the Chinese government that Catholics are not destined to become dissidents," said Michel Chambon, a researcher at the Asia Research Institute, University of Singapore. The Vatican sees Stephen Chow, recently appointed cardinal, as a bridge between Rome and Beijing. The prelate visited the Chinese capital in April and is due to return soon. However, in the absence of authorization from Beijing, no Chinese Catholic prelate was able to travel to Mongolia for Francis' visit.

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