In a whirlwind five-day trip to South Korea, Pope Francis beatified 124 martyrs, kissed almost as many babies and rallied thousands of Asian youth. It might be his use of English, though, that will define his first trip to Asia.
The Argentinian pope not only gave speeches in a language he has expressed discomfort with, he also ad-libbed and even joked around — a linguistic victory deemed crucial to the church’s push to make Asia a future focal point of the religion.
While churches in Christian Europe shrivel, Catholicism is seeing growth in South Korea and other parts of Asia.
To make strong inroads, the head of the church must be able to communicate in a region where many people’s second language is English.
The South Korean trip was a test run for Francis’ English, and the pleasant exchanges he had with young people here pleased Vatican officials.
Francis’ health was another takeaway from the trip.
Though he looked exhausted Monday before leaving for Rome, the 77-year-old workaholic pope, who has only one full lung and a bad back, withstood the rigors of a grueling schedule halfway around the world in a foreign culture.
He seemed cheerful and engaged throughout, despite a sometimes dawn-to-dusk agenda that had him traveling each day, sometimes in multiple helicopter rides.
The trip also shows that the Vatican will likely make more martyrs into saints as a way to connect with Catholics. Hundreds of thousands gathered for a Mass in Seoul in which the pope beatified 124 Korean martyrs who died for their faith in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A telling moment came when the pope was asked by a young Cambodian about the lack of saints from her country. The pope promised to get “my friend Angelo” to work on it, referring to Cardinal Angelo Amato, the head of the Vatican’s saint-making office.
For this pope, the recognition of martyrdom is important because it provides a powerful link between today’s Catholics and those who died for their faith. That, the Vatican believes, gives Catholics role models from their own cultures they can look up to.