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Pope meets relatives of S. Korea ferry crash before mass for 50K

DAEJEON, South Korea — Tens of thousands of Asian Catholics gave a boisterous welcome to Pope Francis on Friday as he celebrated his first public Mass in South Korea, a country with a small but growing church that is seen by the Vatican as a model for the rest of the world.

Francis took a high-speed train to the central city of Daejeon, where Catholic youths from across Asia have been meeting for the Asian version of World Youth Day.

Francis celebrated Mass in Daejeon’s soccer stadium, which has a capacity of 50,000 and was nearly full hours before Francis arrived. Handkerchief-waving crowds led in chants of “Viva il papa!” welcomed him as his open-sided vehicle, with a simple canopy overhead, made its way slowly to the stadium and then inside.

Before Mass got under way, Francis met with about a dozen survivors of South Korea’s ferry disaster and relatives of the dead who are demanding a government inquiry into the sinking.

Most of the more than 300 people killed were high school students on a class trip. Their relatives are pushing lawmakers to set up an independent, transparent probe of the cause of the sinking. The ruling party is opposed because it says a parliamentary committee doesn’t have the power to indict.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has said Francis wouldn’t intervene in the issue but would merely offer comfort to the families. A banner outside the stadium featured a photo of the pope and read “Please wipe the tears of the Sewol families.”

Lombardi didn’t provide details of the content of the meeting, saying only that Francis met with about a dozen people in a room of the stadium before Mass began.

After Mass, Francis was to eat lunch with some of the youth festival participants and then visit an 18th century sanctuary where Korea’s first priest was raised.

South Korean Catholics represent only about 10 percent of the country’s 50 million people, but their numbers are growing. Once a country that welcomed missionaries, South Korea now sends homegrown priests and nuns abroad to help spread the faith.