Pope Francis' five-day foray into South Korea included a Mass attended by nearly 800,000, saw the baptism of a father of a victim of the Seoul ferry disaster, and gave a powerful silent message to the world about the horrors of abortion.The Catholic News Service is reporting that Pope Francis declared 124 Koren martyrs to be blessed under a blazing hot sun on August 16 with an estimated 800,000 people in attendance.
During his homily, Francis noted how the early Korean Christians had to "choose between following Jesus or the world".
For them, the cost of discipleship "meant persecution, and later flight to the mountains, where they formed Catholic villages," the pope said. "They were willing to make great sacrifices and let themselves be stripped of whatever kept them from Christ – possessions and land, prestige and honor – for they knew that Christ alone was their true treasure."
Christians face the same temptation today that was so fiercely resisted by the martyrs of yesterday.
"We today can find our faith challenged by the world, and in countless ways we are asked to compromise our faith, to water down the radical demands of the Gospel and to conform to the spirit of this age. Yet the martyrs call out to us to put Christ first and to see all else in this world in relation to him and his eternal Kingdom. They challenge us to think about what, if anything, we ourselves would be willing to die for."
When he pronounced the words of beatification, trumpets blared and a gigantic painting of the newly blessed martyrs was unfurled. The crowd thundered their approval, laughing and cheering as the image flashed across giant video screens that were scattered along a more than one-mile stretch around the venue.
A much quieter event took place on Sunday morning at around 7:00 a.m. when the Pope presided over the baptism of Lee Ho Jin, the father of one of the victims of the Seoul ferry disaster.
According to a statement by the Holy See Press Office, Lee asked the Holy Father during the Pope’s meeting with the families of the victims of the tragedy before the Mass at the World Cup Stadium in Daejeon the day before.
On the morning of his baptism, Lee was accompanied by his son and daughter, as well as a priest who introduced him to the Holy Father. Lee chose a lay member who works at the Apostolic Nunciature as his godfather.
“The celebration was held in a simple manner and was celebrated in Korean by Fr. John Chong Che-chon, SJ, who has assisted the Pope during the trip as his Korean language interpreter,” the statement read.
“The Pope was very happy to be able to participate - in a way that wasn’t expected - the great ministry of the administration of adult Baptism of the Church in Korea,” the communique stated.
The Associated Press (AP) is reporting on another quieter event that took place on Saturday when the Pope made a strong but silent statement about abortion when he stopped to pray at a monument for aborted babies in a community dedicated to caring for people with genetic disabilities, the kind that cause many people to resort to abortion.
Standing in a garden covered with simple wooden crosses, he bowed his head in prayer.
Afterward, he spoke with an anti-abortion activist who had no arms or legs.
"He also spent an hour blessing dozens of disabled Koreans who live in the Kkottongnae community, founded by a priest in the 1970s to take in disabled children and adults abandoned by their families," the AP reports. "There is still tremendous stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities in South Korea, and supporters of the Kkottongnae community argue that if it didn't take these people in, no one would."
Francis had no reservations about hugging each of the residents of the community, and was particularly impressed when an elderly resident named Kim Inja Cecilia, who suffers from cerebral palsy, and who presented him with an origami crane that she had folded with her toes.
These more subdued moments of blessing came between public events of enormous proportion, often drawing more than half a million people, during a five day trip that had some of the tightest security yet.
As Vatican Radio reports, this extra security is needed because the pope refuses to wear bullet-proof vests or to drive around in secured vehicles because they impede his ability to have personal contact with the crowds - something he loves to do.
He also loves to deviate from planned itineraries.
"People just love it," writes Vatican Radio reporter Sean-Patrick Lovett. "Security details just live with it."
Security was provided by Korea's armed forces, local police, anti-terrorist experts, the National Intelligence Service, and the Presidential Security Service – along with the Vatican’s own police force and the Pope’s personal security escort, Lovett reports.
The Pope's open-air Mass in Seoul was heavily secured with road closures, the rerouting of subways, the deployment of sharpshooters and the clearing of all people from surrounding roofs and terraces.
"Anywhere else in the world, this kind of traffic disruption and urban inconvenience would be met by cries of complaint from the general populace. Not so here," Lovett reports.
"Families not attending the Pope’s Mass wandered gleefully around the traffic-free streets, taking pictures and chatting to bored police officers manning the temporary barricades. Street vendors enjoyed a roaring trade.
"As one Korean teenager told me . . . (proudly practicing his English and calling the Pope 'Papà Francisco' . . .): 'He makes everything beautiful. He makes everybody happy. He makes me feel like I want to be a nice person'."
Before departing Seoul today, the Pope offered a Pope Francis wrapped up his first trip to Asia on Monday by challenging Koreans —from the North and the South — to reject the "mindset of suspicion and confrontation" that clouds their relations and find new ways to forge peace on the war-divided peninsula.
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