Pope Francis: There is only one Korea (and one Church, Holy Father…)
Daejeon, South Korea, Aug 15, 2014 / 04:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Addressing the division between North and South Korea, Pope Francis emphasized that the two are “one family,” calling for prayers of re-unification while stressing repentance and forgiveness. “There is only one Korea, but this family is divided,” the Pope said to a large gathering of young people from across the continent.
His off-the-cuff comments came during an Aug. 15 gathering with youth of Asia at Solmoe Shrine, birthplace of the first Korean-born priest, St. Andrew Kim Taegon, who was martyred in the 1800s. The gathering was part of his Aug. 13-18 visit to South Korea, which coincides with the Sixth Asian Youth Day. After giving prepared remarks in English, Pope Francis told the young people that he wanted to speak to them spontaneously and from the heart.
Encouraged by the eager applause of those present, he set aside his text and began speaking in Italian, with the help of a translator. The Pope encouraged those gathered at the event to pray for their “brothers and sisters in the north,” asking God to guide them to unity, and leaving aside a sense of winners and losers in order to embrace one Korean family. He then paused and invited those gathered spend a moment praying in silence for unity of North and South Korea. Despite the divisions, the pontiff said, “Korea is one family” that speaks the same language.
He pointed to the Biblical account of Joseph in the book of Genesis, observing that the brothers set out to seek food during a time of famine, but instead they find a brother, whom they had earlier sold into slavery. The brothers were linked to Joseph, the Pope observed, by a common language. “Your brothers and sisters in North Korea are speaking the same language, and that gives me hope for the future of the human family,” he said. Pope Francis then discussed the parable of the Prodigal Son, which a group of young people had re-enacted earlier during the gathering. He noted that the prodigal son made the difficult decision to come back and ask forgiveness for all that he had done. The father in the parable, he added, saw the son while he was still a long way off and ran to him, embracing him before he could even apologize. This is the celebration that God loves best of all, when we return home, the Pope said. Although we might make terrible mistakes in our lives, “God will always be waiting for us to return.”
Addressing the priests present, the Holy Father asked that they might be merciful to returning sinners, in imitation of God’s constant desire to embrace us despite our sins. “We must never be afraid to return to God. And God will celebrate,” he said. “God is never tired of waiting for us. He is never tired of welcoming us back home again.” Source
Comment
Pope Francis has caused immense scandal since he took office, primarily for his refusal to “sell” Catholicism. He attacks those with a remotely “traditional leaning” at just about every opportunity, and he recently apologised to Pentecostal Protestants for the refusal of Catholics to help them spread their false beliefs, accusing these bad Catholics of having given in to temptations from the Devil. It’s beyond farcical. Now we have him in Korea, unafraid to court controversy by insisting that there is only “one Korea” – akin to a family divided. Is he keeping the best wine until last? Will he, one of these fine days, tell the world that there is only one Church, as well as one Korea, and that Church is the Catholic Church? Will he recall that this one Church also has the same language, Latin, the language of the Universal Church, as he was quick to point out that north and south Korea share the same language – a key point of unity?
Above all, will Pope Francis do his duty and exhort everyone to enter/remain in this one true Church? Will he ask himself whether now is the time to consecrate Russia, as Our Lady requested, in order to achieve world peace, or does he not connect the dots of north and south Korea… Iraq and the slaughter of Christians… the worsening crisis in the Middle East. Planting olive trees seems to have only made things worse over there, so no point in any more speeches or empty symbolism. Obey your Mother, Holy Father. Or prepare for terrible consequences, both here and hereafter.
Comments (20)
It’s beyond scandalous
Someone told me the other day – that planting trees is a favourite act for masons
DominieMary,
Never heard that before. I thought they were too busy dressing up and playing daft games to go about the place planting trees. But one lives and one learns.
There is quite a bit of symbolism in trees and plants within Freemasonry.
http://www.masonicworld.com/education/files/artoct02/sprig_of_acacia.htm
The same is true of other pagan societies. They have to substitute something for God.
This pope seems to be happy to endorse any and every religion, including televangelists
See this first papal “high-five”
http://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/pope-francis-meets-us-televangelists-and-the-first-ever-papal-high-five-follows.html
It’s not so long since there was a blog here about his meeting with evangelicals at the Vatican. I think this pope is keen on convergence into a one world religion instead of conversion to the one true Church. He has said as much.
If he can see some analogy between the story of Joseph and his brothers and the political situation in the Korean peninsula then he has a more fertile imagination than I. Anyone else see it?
CD,
Since Papa Francis talks off the top of his head most – if not all – of the time, spontaneity being the most important thing, I’d say his choice of the story of Joseph was purely random. Could just as easily have been Cain and Abel.
Watching the news reports, I couldn’t help thinking of the contradiction (yet another one) at the sight of him beatifying the large group of Korean martyrs while telling Protestants they needn’t convert and insisting on a Protestant “bishop” being given a Requiem Mass and “buried as a bishop”.
Gimme strength. By the truckload.
Of course, the Pope doesn’t look at us as his brother Catholics. When traditionalists in Argentina sent him a ‘spiritual bouquet’ of Rosaries he disgracefully said, ‘this thing with counting….there is no need. One thinks that we are back in 1940’. And when it comes to the TLM, we are ‘following fashion’. He talks about us as if we are the Pharisees. I can think of a quote from the Bible for the Pope, ‘by their fruits shall ye know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?’ Or even the Parable of the sower and the cockle.
I’m beginning to think that Pope Francis is giving the clown, Tony Abbott a run for his money as the King of Gaffs.
Summa,
Since we haven’t had the joy of news reports and quotes from Tony Abbott, I thought I’d Google and here’s what I found…
At least he’s a tad stronger on abortion that Papa Francis was on election, when he told us to stop obsessing about it.
Still, I see what you mean. Tony Abbott seems to be Australia’s George Bush!
He makes Bush look like wise. I can’t put it any more succinct than that.
“He makes Bush look like wise.”
That would not be difficult to do!
When I see Francis I feel like I’m looking down the wrong end of a telescope, watching the Church and the Papacy disappear inexorably from view. A living nightmare. A Pope who has thrown a great pearl of the Church like the Rosary to the swine will face a terrible judgement. I doubt if even Shakespeare could write a tragedy like the one now unfolding before our eyes.
Bradders,
Well said. In a nutshell – very well said!
Thank you, Editor, and thank God and Our Lady once again for Catholic Truth.
I am skeptical of the high praise Francis is receiving for his visit to a symbolic cemetery for abortion victims in South Korea.
Abortion is rampant in South Korea; with some 1.5 million such murders carried out annually – despite abortion being in principle illegal except in very limited circumstances.
The South Korean visit would have been a perfect opportunity for him to strongly affirm Church teaching on the matter and offer a valuable defence of life. Not to mention a chance to shine a light on the hypocrisy of the South Korean nation on this matter – and so, by inference, the hypocrisy of all nations who destroy defenceless persons while claiming to value and respect life.
Instead:
Francis paused briefly at the site, bowed his head and folded his hand in prayer
And that was it. Hardly earth shattering. Call me cynical, but it almost seems more like a simple photo-op than anything else.
Yet his admirers in the secular press fall over themselves to praise him for this tokenism, describing the matter thus:
a gesture that strongly reaffirms the Church’s stance against abortion, after suspicion by some that the pontiff might hold tepid anti-abortion views
The Korean Bishops have never ceased to oppose abortion in the country and, had I been one of their number, I’d have hoped for a bit more support / backing from Francis.
Information from:
http://time.com/3124245/pope-francis-south-korea-abortion-cemetery/
http://www.dici.org/en/news/the-catholic-church-in-south-korea/
Gabriel Syme,
I couldn’t agree more. Pope Francis seems preoccupied with his own image and doesn’t seem to care much about abortion. That’s shocking but I’m afraid it’s how it looks to me. The Korean bishops should tell him that they are shocked at his silence, but I doubt they will. Church men don’t want to rock boats these days. We need another Bishop John Fisher.
I’ve been ultra busy these past few days, but took time to comment on a Catholic Herald blog written by Mary O’Regan on the subject of Catholics in the blogosphere criticising Pope Francis. She thinks that’s not right, he’s an OK sort of pontiff. Misunderstood. There are still folk out there (and on the Catholic Herald blog) who think it’s all the fault of the media, misreporting, misinterpreting, you name it. And this, over and over and over and over and over again without the Vatican raising a word of objection. Brainless as a biscuit.
I submitted a couple of quick comments, including one lengthy one in response to Jacobi who occasionally blogs here. He is very young, still at school, and completely ignorant about key matters of the Faith, although obviously well intentioned and, I think, open to correction. Hilariously, while he agrees with Mary O’Regan (and held Michael Voris up as an example of an outstanding layman today – another papolatrist) he asked if it would be OK for him still to blog at Catholic Truth occasionally because he thinks we’re mostly OK, words to that effect. I laughed out loud when I read it. For his sake, despite it being very late at night and having neglected our own blog here all day, I took a few minutes to post a fairly lengthy comment about the dangers of papolatry and the true Catholic attitude to a pontiff such as Pope Francis. This second lengthy post went into moderation and has not been released.
I’d been misled into thinking well of Mzzzzz O’Regan. Now I have the measure of her and won’t be posting at the Catholic Herald again. I did occasionally comment on their topics, precisely because It is (or so I thought) an un-moderated site.
This false charity (“don’t criticise the Pope”) is spreading – so let this be a word of warning. If you blog at the Catholic Herald make sure you keep a copy to post here. I wish I’d kept a copy of mine, but I wasn’t expecting my comment to be banned.
Here endeth the lesson. We’ll now stand and sing two verses of “God bless our Pope” (because this one needs all the prayers he can get!)
Great analysis Editor! (And thanks for this great traditional Catholic blog that I have only just discovered, and am now “following”!)
I keep a lot of my unease and disapproval of Pope Francis’ shocking “anti-Catholic” (I don’t know what other adjective to use) statements to myself for fear of creating a type of sede vacante attitude. Yet quite honestly, I am really beginning to wonder if that is exactly what we have – and this is a really terrifying thought!
As a good friend said to me the other day in an e-mail when talking of this subject: “Sometimes I wish we could return to the days when no-one knew what was going on in the Vatican, the Pope was both a distant, respected figurehead and a loved and loveable Holy Father … and the sheepfold felt familiar, safe and secure.”
I couldn’t put it any better myself. 🙁
Kathleen,
Thank you for your kind words and I’m delighted you are following our blog. Welcome!
I just want to strike a note of warning, though, about your (perfectly understandable!) fear of falling into sedevacantism.
Our Lady spoke of “the Holy Father” throughout the Fatima apparitions, without any suggestion that there would be a time during this crisis when we wouldn’t have a true pope. Even though, at Akita, (follow up to Fatima in 1973) she spoke of “cardinals opposing cardinals and bishops opposing bishops” she made no mention of “no pope”. So, we must conclude that this pontiff was duly elected, at the height of the worst ever crisis in the Church, as part of the spiritual chastisement, no doubt, but a true – if very bad – pope just the same.
We must pray for him and resist his false teaching and bad example, but never deny that he is the pope – I’m sure you know this already. Just have to put in my tuppence worth!
Again, welcome to our blog.
Thank you for your kind words of welcome! 🙂
Yes, I do know this deep down of course, but many thanks for your reassurance.
I am a great believer in the apparitions of Our Blessed Lady at Fatima and Akita. Both places are basically giving us the same messages, as Pope Benedict XVI himself said. Our Lady’s ernest pleadings for for prayer and penance, chastity and obedience, and her warnings of the dire consequences to befall Mankind if we did not heed them, are as true today, and of the same vital importance, as they were in the last century.
And at Fatima Our Lady asked us to “pray for the Holy Father”. It is our duty as faithful Catholics – and my goodness how he needs our prayers!
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