Catholics in Kazakhstan: beauty, suffering & Soviet deportations

Pope Francis travels to Kazakhstan for his 38th international apostolic journey. The Holy Father will be the second pope to visit the Central Asian country after John Paul II. Kazakhstan is a country that experienced a lot of suffering, different nationalities suffered here. After the October Revolution, half of the Kazakh people were exterminated. From 4 million Kazakhs, only 2 million remained in Kazakhstan at that time, the rest died of starvation especially or escaped somewhere abroad. In Kazakhstan there is a painful and beautiful history of the presence of Catholicism. With the Soviet deportations, Catholics finally returned after the years of St. Francis of Assisi. Those deported were mainly Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, but also other nationalities. For seventy years the faith was communicated mainly by grandmothers to their grandchildren with almost no presence of priests and sacraments. #PopeInKazakhstan Follow us on our social networks: Instagram: Twitter: Facebook: