In gesture of peace, Kim invites Pope Francis to North Korea

South Korea’s Moon has already sought advice from Vatican.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, which has been condemned as one of the worst suppressors of religious freedom in the world, has invited Pope Francis to visit his country, South Korea’s government said Tuesday.

The invitation will be relayed by South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, a Roman Catholic, when he visits the Vatican for two days next week to seek the pope’s help in easing tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula, said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for Moon.

Moon met with Kim in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last month.

“If the pope visits Pyongyang, we will give him a rousing welcome,” Kim told Moon, according to Moon’s spokesman.

There was no immediate comment from the Vatican on whether Francis would accept the invitation, but it is considered highly unlikely.

Improbable as such a visit may sound, this is not the first time that North Korea has tried to invite a pope.

In 199 1 , as the Soviet bloc began disintegrating, North Korea campaigned to invite Pope John Paul II to Pyongyang to help ease its deepening diplomatic isolation, according to a memoir by Thae Yong Ho, a North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in 2016.

The government even found an older woman who still held on to her Catholic beliefs from the days before the Communists took over at the end of World War II. The woman, who still practiced her faith in secret, was taken to the Vatican to meet the pope, Thae said.

But the North eventually abandoned its campaign for fear that such a visit might fan religious zeal in the hermit nation, he added.

Francis has shown inter- est in helping build a last- ing peace on the peninsula.

When he visited South Korea in 2014, Francis said he came here “thinking of peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula.” North Korea fired three short-range rockets off its east coast shortly before the pope’s arrival. After the pope landed, it fired two more rockets.

Still, Francis called for forgiveness and renewed dia- logue on the peninsula and for more humanitarian aid for North Korea.

“Peter asks the Lord: ‘If my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ To which the Lord replies: ‘Not seven times, I tell you, but 70 times seven,’” the pope said in reference to decades of hostilities and mistrust that have divided Korea. “Unless we are prepared to do this, how can we honestly pray for peace and reconciliation?”

Such a message usually does not go down very well with conservative South Koreans, including right-wing Protestants who are some of the most vocal opponents of the Communist government in Pyongyang. These Protestant activists have burned Kim in effigy during outdoor rallies and released large bal- loons that spread anti-Kim leaflets over the North.

But Francis’ appeal has found a powerful supporter in Moon, who has dedicated his diplomacy to improving relations and helping resolve the crisis over the North’s nuclear weapons development.

Moon hopes that Francis might accept Kim’s invitation in a landmark moment for easing tensions on the peninsula. A visit would also sig- nal a willingness by Kim to open his country.

But should the pope accept the offer, he would wade into a country widely accused of torturing and even execut- ing the faithful.

“The North Korean government’s approach toward religion and belief is among the most hostile and repressive in the world,” the U.S. Commission on Interna- tional Religious Freedom said in its annual report this year. “Freedom of religion or belief does not exist in North Korea. The regime exerts absolute influence over the handful of state-con- trolled houses of worship permitted to exist, creating a facade of religious life in North Korea.”

In 2014, the U.N. commission of inquiry on human rights in North Korea said Kim’s government considered the spread of Christi- anity “a particularly seri- ous threat since it ideologically challenges the official personality cult.”