{"id":17449,"date":"2014-08-13T19:08:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T19:08:54","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-08-13T19:08:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T19:08:10","slug":"Pope-to-speak-to-North-Korea-s-church-of-silence-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=17449","title":{"rendered":"Pope to speak to North Korea’s ‘church of silence’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pope is scheduled to conduct a special Korean “peace and reconciliation” mass on August 18<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Catholic Association (KCA) has no ties with the Vatican and is often referred to as the “Church of silence” by Catholics in the South.<\/p>\n

A North Korean lay catechist runs the church,<\/strong> along with a few elders, and Hammond says the front pews were mostly taken up by “veiled women in black” who were probably mobilised by the authorities.<\/p>\n

The KCA claims there are 3,000 Catholics in the country, while the UN estimates around 800.<\/p>\n

Frequent visitors and rights groups say the closed nature of the North makes it impossible to provide a meaningful figure, although it is clearly a tiny community.<\/p>\n

And a foreign passport is no protection.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source AFP<\/em>
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