• 아래는 10월 30일자 조선일보에 실린 류근일 칼럼 <로마 교황이 네로 황제를 축복해줄 수는 없다>의 영역본입니다. 이 글이 로마 교황청, 서울의 교황청 대사관에 전해지기를 희망합니다. 안 전해져도 그만이고... 전해지기를 안달복달 바라는 건 결코 아닙니다.                           


                               Pope can not bless Emperor Nero

      "Christians face more difficult roads. They are regarded as imperialists who seek to overthrow the government, and when arrested, they are subjected to severe torture and summary execution.“

      This is not a tale of Rome before Christianity was officially recognized. It is the reality of 21st century North Korea. Harley McCain, Fox news reporter, wrote this article quoting Jeff King, president of the International Christian Concern, in the Fox Nation on August 18, 2017.

      President Moon Jae In expressed his wish to Pope Francis to visit North Korea even though there was no official invitation from Pyonyang. Pope said he was ‘available’ when officially invited. The Blue Hous publicized this wording as if it were a decision to go. If this kind of interpretation is correct, Pope Francis will become the first Pope to bless and anoint emperor Nero the murderer, at his execution site of christians.

      Pope Francis is known as a ‘progressive’ person. He has shown particular concern on the homosexuals, women, child labor, migrants, and the divorced. On the other hand, he also has a 'traditional' aspect. He has expressed deep commitment to the devil phenomenon. On April 10, 2014, he said "Satan does not want us to follow Christ. What demon in the 21st century? Devil is distinctly present. We must learn from the Bible how to fight the devil."

     The Pope presented seven ways to fight the devil. Among them, there is a saying that you should not believe the lavish promise of the ‘prince of evil’. "It is better not to argue with the devil, who leads us to confusion, because he is much smarter than us."


      Who is the 'prince of evil'? It is the 'power of evil spirit' that has the face of an angel. It is Stalin's bloody purge, Hitler's Holocaust, political prison camps in the hereditary despotism of Pyongyang, and the terror of Red Guards during the cultural Revolution of Mao’s China.


    North Korea is where all those evils are present at the same time. The North Korean Human Rights Report of the International Bar Association of 2017 can be a good references to the Pope Francis, the Holy Sea, and the Pontifical Embassy in Seoul.

       There are between 80,000 and 130,000 political prisoners in North Korea who are under extreme suppression. Organized murders, torture, rape, forced abortions and hunger, including infanticide, are on a daily basis."

      A few days before the International Religious Freedom Day (Oct. 27), the U.S. Department of State released an interview video of Ji Hyun Ah, a North Korean refugee. Ji, who was arrested for having a Bible in North Korea, said, "I was forced to undergo abortive surgery without anesthesia.“

       This reality of North Korea perfectly fulfills the ‘conditions of the devil’ enumerated by Pope Francis. On May 8, he spoke in his homilies of morning mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, his residence. "Devil does not know that he has been defeated by the resurrection of Christ, but still wields enormous power showing us a gift bag. We are often seduced by that without our knowing what is in it."

      The Pyongyang hereditary tyranny also tries to deceive and seduce South Korea, the United States, and the entire world with a fake bundle of ‘woori minjok kiri(North-South unison against foreign interference)’ ‘denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as opposed to the denuclearization of North Korea’ ‘declaration of end of the war’ and "alleviation of sanction against North ‘Korea first, as opposed to the dismantlement of Norht Korean nuclear arsenal first. But, European and ASEM leaders said no to it at the presence of president Moon who recently visited them.

      The Pope saw the demonic identity better than anyone else. However, if he blesses Kim Jong Un and his reign on North Korean soil as requested by President Moon, it would be a cruel betrayal of North Korean martyrs and underground christians who were slaughtered by the Pyongyiang Pharaoh.

      British Prime Minister Chamberlain also tried to shake hands with Hitler for ‘peace’. There is a voice in the Korean Peninsula too, that the sanction against North Korea should be removed in advance to denuclearization of North Korea. The North Korean Human Rights Foundation closed its office with its budget grossly cut in two years after its launch, for ‘peace’!

    But, even if the whole world politicians do like that in the name of ‘peace’, Pope Francis should not follow them. He should be a philosopher and a religious person before he is a politician. He has always asserted that we must fight fiercely without compromising with the devil. Peace without truth, human right, the right to pursue happiness, and goodness is fake peace.

      Pope Francis is a man who had gone through the ‘dirty war’ of the Argentine military regime (1976-1983), a nd Kim Jong Un’s North Korea is the worst model of the ‘dirty war’, which means such a contradictory happening as Pope’s journey to North Korea can not, should not, and hopefully, will not happen.

    류근일 / 전 조선일보 주필 /2018/11/12
    류근일의 탐미주의 클럽(cafe.daum.net/aesthetticismclub)