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 On the third day of his visit to South Korea, Francis celebrated a
huge open-air Mass in the center of the capital Seoul, where he
denounced the growing gap between the haves and have nots, urging
people in affluent societies to listen to "the cry of the poor"
among them.
Later, he flew by helicopter to a hilltop center for the sick,
disabled and homeless run by the Church in the town of Kkottongnae,
southeast of Seoul.
There, he comforted sick children and adults, some of them severely
disabled and disfigured and in wheel chairs, and declined to use a
comfortable white, padded chair that had been prepared for him. "I
like to stand," he said. Bowing to local tradition, he removed his
shoes as he entered the center.
Later, in another section of the institute, Francis praised clergy
who dedicate their lives to the needy and urged them to stay on the
right path.
"The hypocrisy of those consecrated men and women who profess vows
of poverty, yet live like the rich, wounds the souls of the faithful
and harms the Church," he said.
 Francis has been urging Roman Catholic officials to live simpler
lives, and renounced the papal apartments in the Vatican palace for
modest quarters in a Church guest house.
In March, he removed a German prelate who became known as the
"bishop of bling" because he spent 31 million euros ($41.5 million)
of Church funds on an extravagant residence.
In the United States, the Archbishop of Atlanta apologized for
building a $2.2 million mansion to use as his home, a move that made
him the object of derision and complaint, and said it would be sold.
On his first day in South Korea on Thursday, Francis made a splash
with his choice of car for the five-day visit, a modest locally-made
Kia Soul.
At the hilltop center, he joked with nuns that he had to cut short
his time with them because if it went beyond dark "the helicopters
risk crashing into the mountain".
Earlier on Saturday in Seoul, the pope beatified 124 Korean martyrs
who were killed for refusing to renounce Christianity in the 18th
and 19th centuries. Beatification is the last step before sainthood
in the Roman Catholic Church.
HEAR 'CRY OF THE POOR'
In his homily before a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Seoul,
Francis said the martyrs' courage and charity and their rejection of
the rigid social structures of their day should be an inspiration
for people today.
"Their example has much to say to us who live in societies where,
alongside immense wealth, dire poverty is silently growing; where
the cry of the poor is seldom heeded and where Christ continues to
call out to us, asking us to love and serve him by tending to our
brothers and sisters in need," he said.
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It was a theme the pope has been repeating since he arrived in South
Korea on Thursday for his first trip to Asia since his election in
March, 2013, and has been a lynchpin of the papacy of the first
non-European pontiff in 1,300 years.
Last year, in the first major written work of his papacy, Francis
attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny", urging global
leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality.
Rapid economic growth has made South Korea one of the world's
wealthiest countries, but it has also become increasingly unequal,
with nearly half the elderly in poverty.
The pope said the Mass from a white altar platform in front of
Gwanghwamun Gate, where some of those beatified by Francis were
killed during the Chosun dynasty.
During his procession to the altar, Francis stopped to pray with
family members of victims of the Sewol ferry disaster, one of whom
handed him a letter and said: "please do not forget." The Sewol
capsized and sank during a routine voyage on April 16, killing more
than 300 people, most of them school children.
As he did on Friday when he prayed for the victims, survivors and
families of the disaster, the pope wore a yellow ribbon, the symbol
of tribute for the ferry victims.
In Kkottongnae, Francis watched a group of disabled children perform
a dance, and a woman paralyzed from the waist down gave the pope an
embroidery with his image on it.
The history of Christianity in Korea is unique in that it was not
founded by Western missionaries. Korean intellectuals in the late
18th century heard about it through literature that had arrived in
the country from China and developed their own community.
The Catholic Church has been growing rapidly in South Korea,
doubling in the past 25 years to account for about 11 percent of the
population of 50 million. About 100,000 Catholics are added every
year.
(Additional reporting by Kahyun Yang; Editing by Tony Munroe and
Richard Borsuk)
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