Hopes for geographical reconciliation

POPE FRANCIS’ visit to South Korea “will help to launch a new reconciliation” between the two Koreas, said the president of the country’s bishops’ conference. Bishop of Cheju Peter Kang U-il was speaking as final preparations were being made for the five-day visit beginning on Thursday, the first there by a pope since St John Paul II in 1989.

Political and geographical reconciliation was possible, he claimed, adding: “We are divided only since 1945.” However, the state-controlled North Korean Catholic Association, which runs the only Catholic church in the country, albeit without a priest, put a dampener on hopes of imminent change, this week rejecting an invitation to a papal Mass ­dedicated to peace and reconciliation.