In this photo taken on Monday, July 28, 2014, Rev. Park Geun Tae speaks during an interview at a Seoul Catholic church in Seoul, South Korea. Park said the emergence of Catholicism in Korea was seen by some as liberation from a system where some of the lowest-class believers had been “treated like animals.” Catholics were persecuted for allegedly disrupting the social order, plotting treason, denying the Joseon Dynasty’s legitimacy and seeking help from foreign powers to spread Christianity. The 124 Korean Catholic martyrs who will be honored by Pope Francis this week left behind families who were in the dark about their sacrifices for generations, and in some cases now live as Buddhists or Protestants. Francis on Thursday, Aug. 14, makes the first papal visit to South Korea in 25 years and is expected to praise the martyrs he plans to beatify in the last formal step before sainthood. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
BEIJING — Chinese Catholics are cheering Pope Francis’ visit to neighbor South Korea, saying they hope that it will help end the estrangement between their government and the Vatican.
Francis’ first visit to Asia including a first-ever papal flyover of Chinese airspace, during which he sent a telegram expressing greetings and prayers to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people.
On Friday, Catholic laypeople and priests who flocked to mass at Beijing’s oldest church said they felt closer to the pope and expressed hopes for a papal visit in the not too-distant future.
China and the Vatican have no formal ties and relations have been tense over Beijing’s demand that it have the right to appoint bishop. The Vatican says that key prerogative belongs to it alone.
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