Seoul, South Korea - A group of South Korean Roman Catholics left for North Korea on Wednesday, a Church official said, the first such official delegation to visit a country Washington has criticized for suppressing religion.
The visit comes after Pope Benedict installed a second cardinal for South Korea earlier this year. Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk is interested in rebuilding the Church in the communist country and having a priest installed there.
Cheong also heads the Roman Catholic diocese in the capital of North Korea, although it is mostly a symbolic title since there are no practicing Catholic priests in the country.
He has not visited the North but Church officials in Seoul said he was preparing events to mark the 80th anniversary of the Pyongyang diocese in 2007.
The 61-member delegation from the Archdiocese of Seoul will inspect how the more than $10 million it has sent to North Korea for humanitarian aid has been used.
The South Korean delegation will stay in North Korea until Saturday and is being led by the director of the archdiocese's Reconciliation Committee, spokeswoman Ahn Sun-young said by telephone.
Some human rights groups in South Korea have urged the Pontiff, a German, to visit the North and deliver a message about uniting East and West Germany. The two Koreas have been divided for more than 60 years.
South Korea estimates there are about 3,000 Catholics in North Korea and about 12,000 Protestants, while in the South there are about 4.5 million Catholics.
The State Department last year placed the North alongside China and Myanmar on a list of countries that "regard some or all religious groups as enemies of the state."
Refugees from the secretive state have told human rights groups that some people who tried to practice their religion were thrown into prison camps along with their families then tortured and, in some cases, executed.