By Philip Pullella
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (Reuters) -Pope Francis, who is sometimes received as a superstar on trips abroad, arrived in Mongolia on Friday to the joy of its tiny Catholic community but with his presence barely making a ripple in the overwhelmingly Buddhist country.
The plane carrying Francis and his entourage landed after a night flight of nearly 10 hours, and the pope, who is 86 and in need of a wheelchair, was resting for the remainder of the day.
His first engagement is on Saturday, when he attends an official welcoming ceremony and addresses government leaders and diplomats.
At the airport, a woman in traditional dress offered the pope solid yogurt, a customary Mongolian gesture of welcome, before he was wheeled past an honour guard wearing ornate blue and red uniforms and holding rifles.
Apart from Mongolian and Vatican flags on poles on the highway, and traffic backed up by the passing of his motorcade, there were barely any signs that the pope was in town.
One of the few banners along his motorcade route into the modern capital surrounded by a mostly barren expanse was held up by Catholics from Vietnam, a country once hostile to Western religions but which recently upgraded its relations with the Vatican.
There are only 1,450 Catholics in Mongolia, administered by Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, who started working in the country more than 20 years ago as a young priest.
Visiting places where Catholics are a minority is part of Francis’s policy of drawing attention to people and problems in what he has called the peripheries of society and of the world. He has not visited most of the capitals of Western Europe.
Talking to reporters on the plane from Rome, Francis said he was looking forward to visiting even just one part of the vast country, said it had a “a small population but with a great culture”.
Francis, who had an intestinal operation in June, looked relatively fit as he walked through the reporters’ section of the plane, leaning on his cane and stopping to chat.
As is customary, Francis, who besides being the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics is also a head of state, wired greetings to the leaders of each country he flew over, including China, with which the Vatican has had difficult relations.
He told Chinese President Xi Jinping he had good wishes for all the people of China and assured the president of his prayers for the “wellbeing of the nation”.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Francis will preside over several religious events before he leaves on Monday, the centrepiece being a Mass in the Steppe Arena on Sunday.
He will also attend an inter-religious service and inaugurate a charity centre to help the needy, regardless of their religion.
(Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Robert Birsel)