SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In Asia, Pope Francis is being remembered today for his intense engagement with the region. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL TOLLING)
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: A bell tolled at Seoul's Myeongdong Cathedral, where in 2014, Pope Francis held a mass for peace and reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula. Sixty-three-year-old homemaker Jang Hye-jeong waited in line to pay her respects.
JANG HYE-JEONG: (Through interpreter) The most memorable moments for me were when the pope looked each one of the former comfort women in the eye and consoled them And when he gave solace to the families of Sewol ferry victims who were in tremendous pain.
KUHN: The so-called comfort women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. The 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry killed more than 300 people, most of them high school students.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
KUHN: The following year, Pope Francis visited the Philippines, home to the largest Catholic population in Asia. More than 6 million people attended the pope's mass in Manila, the largest papal crowd in history.
MICHEL CHAMBON: So he had a massive, massive engagement with Asia.
KUHN: Michel Chambon is an expert on Christianity in Asia at the National University of Singapore.
CHAMBON: It was not to recruit more Catholics but to care for the most populous continent of the world.
KUHN: Especially, he adds, their most marginalized and strife-torn communities - Pope Francis did not make it to China. The Vatican has diplomatic relations with Taipei, not Beijing. But Pope Francis did craft a provisional agreement in 2018 between the Vatican and the government of the People's Republic of China, or PRC. Chambon says it allows the two sides to cooperate on the selection of bishops.
CHAMBON: The PRC select one or two candidates, and then the Vatican runs its own investigation and approve or not.
KUHN: The agreement has its critics, such as Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, who called it a deal with the devil. But Chambon says the 2018 agreement has eased the struggle between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party for the loyalty of China's roughly 10 million Catholics.
Last year, on his last and longest Asia trip, Pope Francis visited the remote highlands of Papua, New Guinea, and Timor-Leste, which is 97% Catholic. Chambon says he was also welcomed in the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia.
CHAMBON: And it was a huge success. The humility, the simplicity, the proximity of Pope Francis in his small white car.
KUHN: And by prioritizing engagement with marginalized regions and communities, Chambon says, he showed a caring that was truly Catholic or, in other words, universal.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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