Pope Francis flies to South Korea for first Asian visit

On the tarmac at Fiumicino Airport to see him off was Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The pair chatted and joked after a stiff breeze blew off the papal hat.

 

The Catholic Church in South Korea is a vibrant community, growing at a rate of about 100,000 new members a year, most of them adult converts, and the pope will hold a "Mass for Peace and Reconciliation" in the Myeong-dong cathedral in Seoul, the capital.

 

Officials of the Catholic Church in South Korea, which counts about 10 percent of the population of 50 million, said they had asked the North to send a delegation to a papal Mass, but the North said they could not "for various reasons".

 

North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion provided it does not undermine the state, but outside of a small handful of state-controlled places of worship, no open religious activity is allowed.

 

A United Nations report earlier this year cited estimates that between 200,000 and 400,000 of North Korea's 24 million people are Christians. The number is impossible to verify because most Christians cannot worship openly.

 

The pope' six-day visit, whose main purpose is for him to preside at a gathering of Asian Catholic youth, is the third international trip by Francis since his election in March 2013 and the first by a pontiff to Asia since 1999.

 

The two Koreas have been divided since the Korean War, which left millions of families separated. The South and the reclusive, communist North have been at a near-constant standoff since the 1953 armistice.

 

Francis is due to visit Asia again in January when he travels to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. — Reuters