Pope to speak to N Korea ‘church of silence’

Seoul — Pope Francis will offer prayers for Korean reconciliation in Seoul next week, but they are unlikely to be heard in North Korea which pays lip-service to religious freedom but treats unsanctioned acts of devotion as criminal. The pope is scheduled to conduct a special Korean “peace and reconciliation” mass on August 18, at the end of a five-day trip to South Korea that will highlight the courage and sacrifice of early Catholic believers across the peninsula before its division.

While Catholicism has prospered in the South since the 1950-53 Korea War, in the North its presence is little more than a facade.

A recent report compiled by a UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights in North Korea concluded that practising Christianity outside the state-sanctioned church amounted to a “political crime” in the country.

The basic policy is “a dual one through which an appearance of religious tolerance is maintained for the international audience while in fact religious activities are suppressed internally”, it said.

The Vatican says there are no plans to visit the heavily militarised border, although spokesman Federico Lombardi stressed that the pope was “always capable of surprises”.— AFP