Pope in S. Korea on first Asia visit for 15 years

Pope Francis on Thursday kicked off a five-day visit to South Korea fuelled by the Vatican's desire to expand the Church in Asia despite challenges posed by governments like atheist China. Regional tensions were underlined just minutes before the pontiff stepped off his plane, with neighbouring nuclear-armed North Korea firing a series of short-range rockets into the sea off its east coast. Smiling broadly and waving, Francis was welcomed by President Park Geun-Hye and a reception committee that included two North Korean defectors and relatives of those killed in April's ferry disaster that left 300 people -- mostly schoolchildren -- dead. Responding to Park's wish that his visit would encourage peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula, the pope replied that he had come ‘with that deep in my heart’. Francis is expected to send a message of peace to Pyongyang when he holds a special inter-Korean ‘reconciliation’ mass in Seoul next week, according to AFP.