SW News: The Mongolian Deputy Minister of Foreign affairs has said that friendly ties between the nation and the Vatican in the cultural and humanitarian domains are developing. Minister B Munkhjin’s remarks came during a meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Vatican City State to Mongolia Monsignor Alfred Xuereb on October 19.

During the meeting, the minister pledged his support to intensify bilateral ties and cooperation between the two countries. Monsignor Xuereb proposed to jointly host a series of commemorative events next year to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Mongolia and the Vatican. The prelate also said that the Vatican attaches great significance to developing relations with the landlocked Asian country.

Monsignor Xuereb was appointed apostolic nuncio of both South Korea and Mongolia on February 26, 2018, by Holy Father Pope Francis. On March 19 the same year, he received episcopal consecration in St Peter’s Basilica by Pope Francis.

Born on the island of Gozo in Malta on October 14, 1958, Xuereb was ordained on May 26, 1984, and he bagged a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum. For several years he undertook pastoral work in Malta until September 1991 when he joined the staff of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

Four years later, Fr Xuereb joined the General Affairs Section of the Secretariat of State. Fr Xuereb was given an appointment in the Prefecture of the Papal Household in November 2000 and Pope St John Paul II honored him with the title of Honorary Prelate on September 9, 2003.

It was in 2007 that Monsignor Xuereb was appointed the second private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI. In 2013, he was appointed the first private secretary of Pope Francis. In November the same year, the Holy Father made him a delegate for the Pontifical Commission probing the Institute for the Works of Religion. On March 3, 2014, Pope Francis appointed him as secretary-general of the Secretariat for the Economy, which is a new department in the Curia.

There are close to 1,300 Catholics in Mongolia and they are under the Apostolic Prefecture of Ulaan Baataar, which is headed by Bishop Giorgio Marengo of the Consolata congregation.