Good morning to all of you, dear brothers and sisters!

Allow me to address you in this way, as a brother in faith to those who believe in Christ, and as a brother to all of you in the name of our shared religious quest and our membership in the one human family. In terms of that religious quest, humanity can be compared to a band of wayfarers treading the earth with eyes lifted to heaven. A traveler from afar once observed that here in Mongolia he saw “nothing but the sky and earth.” (cf. William of Rubruk, Viaggio in Mongolia, XIII/3, Milan 2014, 63). Here indeed, the sky, so clear and blue, embraces these vast and imposing lands, as if to remind us of the two essential aspects of human life: the earthly, made up of our relationships with others, and the heavenly, consisting in our quest for the transcendent Other. Mongolia thus reminds all of us, as pilgrims and wayfarers, to lift our gaze on high in order to discern which path to follow on our journey here below.

I am happy to be with you for this significant moment of encounter. I thank each of you most heartily for your presence and for every one of the talks that have enriched our common reflection. The fact that we are meeting together in one place already sends a message: it shows that the religious traditions, for all their distinctiveness and diversity, have impressive potential for the benefit of society as a whole. If the leaders of nations were to choose the path of encounter and dialogue with others, it would certainly be a decisive contribution to ending the conflicts continuing to afflict so many of the world’s peoples [...]

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