Korean first

SIX North Korean Catholics met with Vatican officials and greeted Pope John Paul II during a Holy Week visit to Rome, Vatican and church sources said. The five men and one woman — the first Catholic delegation from their country allowed to visit the Vatican — were given front-row seats at the Easter Vigil and Mass celebrated by the Pope in St Peter's Basilica.
Members of the group went to confession and received Communion for the first time in decades. They participated for the first time in the post-Vatican II Mass, including a private Mass in Korean.
The pilgrims' encounter with Vatican officials was primarily a courtesy meeting.
The unprecedented pilgrimage was approved by North Korea's communist government after several months of unofficial contacts with the Vatican, according to Vatican sources. North Korea forced the church underground in the late 1940s and 1950s, and today Catholics there are believed to be fewer than 1,000.