Pope Francis will deliver
four speeches in English, attend youth events, and beatify 124
martyrs during a visit to South Korea next week, his first trip
to Asia as pope.
During a visit that will emphasize peace, Francis will also
celebrate a Mass for reconciliation at the Myeong-dong
Cathedral, seat of the Archdiocese of Seoul.
But despite invitations from his South Korean hosts, a
delegation from North Korea has refused to attend the papal
service.
"Though the division (between North and South Korea) is
there, this is a Mass for peace, that will be given an extra
emphasis by the presence of Pope Francis", Vatican spokesman
Father Federico Lombardi said Thursday.
The pope's itinerary is packed with a wide range of events.
Besides numerous Church-related events including sessions
with bishops and religious communities, Francis also has a
meeting planned with surviving "comfort women" who were forced
into sex slavery by the Japanese army in Korea in the Second
World War.
Some of the surviving women in Korea have become leading
public figures.
Francis also plans to meet with the families of the victims
of the April Sewol ferry disaster that killed 304 people - many
of them children and teens - following an open-air Mass at the
Gwanghwamun Gate on August 16.
The capsizing of the overloaded Sewol ferry transporting an
estimated 476 people and far too many containers from the South
Korean mainland to the southern island of Jeju on April 16
remains an open wound with many families demanding a full
government probe of the tragedy.
The pope will deliver 11 speeches throughout his visit
including four in English - a language he does not frequently
use in public - and deliver the closing Mass at the Sixth Asian
Youth Day in Daejeon, according to his itinerary.
During his four days in Korea, the pope will also meet with
South Korean President Park Geun-hye in the capital city of
Seoul.
While in Seoul, he will take part in a canonization
ceremony for 124 Korean Catholics who were martyred in the 18th
and 19th centuries.
Francis will also visit the country's newly appointed
cardinal, Andrew Yeom Soo-jung.
In January, Francis named the 71-year-old archbishop of
Seoul as a new cardinal, making him the country's third-ever
cardinal after Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, who died in 2009, and
Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk.
South Korea has a Catholic community of more than five
million, a sizable portion of its nearly 49-million population
whose religious heritage is largely based on Buddhism.
The Vatican has said that the region is of interest and
high importance to the pontiff and one that he has been
interested in seeing.
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