Pope urges Koreans to reject suspicious mindset

Pope Francis wrapped up his first trip to Asia yesterday by challenging Koreans — from the North and the South — to reject the “mindset of suspicion and confrontation” that clouds their relations and find new ways to forge peace on the war-divided peninsula. 

Before returning to Rome, the Pope held a Mass of reconciliation at Seoul’s main cathedral, attended by South Korean president Park Geun-hye as well as some North Korean defectors.

It was the final event of a five-day trip that confirmed the importance of Asia for the papacy.

Francis’s plea for peace came as the US and South Korea started a joint military drill that North Korea warned would result in a “merciless preemptive strike” against the allies.

In a poignant moment at the start of the Mass, Francis greeted seven women, many sitting in wheelchairs, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the Second World War. One gave him a pin of a butterfly — a symbol of these “comfort women’s” plight — which he immediately pinned to his vestments.

Francis said in his homily that reconciliation can be brought about only by forgiveness, even if it seems “impossible, impractical and even at times repugnant”.

“Let us pray, then, for the emergence of new opportunities for dialogue, encounter and the resolution of differences, for continued generosity in providing humanitarian assistance to those in need, and for an ever greater recognition that all Koreans are brothers and sisters, members of one family, one people,” he said.

During his trip the Pope reached out to China, North Korea, and a host of other countries that have no relations with the Holy See.

In January he will visit the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

In Seoul, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, said Francis is offering “a friendly hand to the other countries, and assuring the countries we are not here for any worldly ambition, we are not here as conquerors, we are here as brothers and sisters.”