The Sewol carrying 476 people sank off the country’s southwest coast, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing, mostly high school students who were on a field trip to the southern resort island of Jeju.
Historians say up to 200,000 Asian women, mostly from Korea, were coerced into sexual servitude at front-line Japanese military brothels during World War II.
The main reason for the Pope’s Aug. 14-18 trip is to participate in a meeting of Asian Catholic youths and beatify 124 Korean martyrs, who were killed for their beliefs between 1791 and 1888, Vatican spokesman father Federico Lombardi said during a news conference at the Vatican.
Some five million of the nation’s 50 million people are Catholic believers.
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