Pope visits S. Korea on 5-day trip

At Mass, Francis urges Catholic young to reject materialism

Pope Francis signs the guestbook Thursday during a meeting with South Korean bishops at the headquarters of the Korean Episcopal Conference in Seoul.
Pope Francis signs the guestbook Thursday during a meeting with South Korean bishops at the headquarters of the Korean Episcopal Conference in Seoul.

SEOUL, South Korea — Tens of thousands of Asian Catholics gave a boisterous welcome to Pope Francis today as he celebrated his first public Mass in South Korea, a country with a small but growing Catholic Church.

photo

AP

People wave and take photographs of Pope Francis’ motorcade Thursday on a road leading to the presidential house in Seoul, South Korea.

Nearly 11 percent of South Korea’s population identified as Catholic in 2005, the last time a nationwide census on religious affiliation was conducted.

Francis urged Asia’s Catholic youth today to renounce the materialism that now afflicts much of Asian society and reject “inhuman” economic systems that disenfranchise the poor, pressing his economic agenda in one of Asia’s powerhouses where financial gain is a key barometer of success.

In his homily, Francis urged the young people to be a force of renewal: “May they combat the allure of a materialism that stifles authentic spiritual and cultural values and the spirit of unbridled competition which generates selfishness and strife.”

Francis arrived in South Korea on Thursday, beginning the first papal visit to Asia since 1999 by expressing hope for reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula and offering consolation to the families who lost hundreds of children in a ferry disaster in April.

North Korea fired three short-range rockets off its east coast shortly before the pope’s arrival from the west, over China. Later, after the pope landed, the North fired two more rockets. Pyongyang has conducted such launchings frequently in recent months.

“I came here thinking of peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula,” the pope told President Park Geun-hye, who greeted him at a military airport south of Seoul, the capital, often used by visiting heads of state.

For South Korea, the pope’s trip comes after a troubling few months. The country is still grieving the loss of more than 300 people, mostly teenagers, in the April 16 sinking of a ferry off the southwestern coast.

Before the Mass got underway today, Francis met with about a dozen survivors of the ferry disaster and relatives of the dead who are demanding a government inquiry into the sinking. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi has said Francis wouldn’t intervene in the issue but would merely offer comfort to the families.

On Thursday, at a brief welcoming ceremony at the airport, the pope met with the father of Park Seong-ho, an 18-year-old student who died in the ferry sinking, and with three other people who lost family members. The younger Park, a Catholic, had wanted to be a priest, his relatives said.

“My heart aches for you,” the pope said. “I remember the victims.”

He held the hands of the relatives, some of whom were in tears during the meeting.

Later Thursday, in a welcoming ceremony at the presidential Blue House, Park Geun-hye spoke of the pain of the division of the Korean Peninsula, reminding the pope that the communist North had kidnapped and killed Christian pastors and priests and confiscated their churches. She said she hoped North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons development.

In his own remarks at the Blue House, the pope said peace on the Korean Peninsula “affects the stability of the entire area and indeed of our whole war-weary world.”

North Korea’s state-run Catholic organization, which, along with its official churches and temples, is widely dismissed as an attempt by the government to hide its persecution of religious worshippers, declined an invitation to send a delegation to a papal Mass scheduled Monday in Seoul.

Meanwhile, some Chinese trying to travel to South Korea to see Francis were recently blocked by local officials, said Ren Dahai, the head of a Catholic charity in Hebei province, which abuts Beijing. He said he did not have exact numbers.

“It’s about half and half,” he said. “I think it all depends on the attitudes of the local governments. I don’t think it’s a central government order, or else no one would be able to get out.”

The Vatican does not have a formal relationship with the Chinese government, and the two sides are often at odds over appointments of bishops and other senior clergy members.

In a break from tradition, China allowed the pope to fly through its airspace en route to South Korea. The pope then broadcast a message to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president and leader of the Communist Party.

“Upon entering Chinese airspace, I extend best wishes to your excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke the divine blessings of peace and well-being upon the nation,” the pope said in a radio telegram.

Information for this article was contributed by Choe Sang-Hun, Edward Wong and Patrick Zuo of The New York Times and by Nicole Winfield of The Associated Press.

Upcoming Events