MGR. QUINLAN IS BACK IN KOREA

Great and colourful welcome
MGR. THOMAS QUINLAN, who four years ago trudged out of North Korea to Manchuria in the winter Death March, flew into Seoul from Tokyo on Friday to a great and colourful welcome.
A choir of Korean children at the airport sang the Papal Hymn to the new Regent of the Papal Delegation. Brightly garbed children loaded the tall, broadshouldered prelate with huge bouquets. Hundreds of Koreans waved Papal and Korean flags to greet bins.
White Russians and Turkish families who had been Mgr. Quinlan's fellow-prisoners pushed through the crowd to meet again the man they had learned to love in Red camps. Smiles and tears mingled as they clustered round him. White-bearded Nicholai Tichinoff, who speaks no English, just muttered "Father" in a choking voice.
Bishop Cooper, the Anglican Bishop in Korea who was a companion of Mgr. Quinlan on the Death March, was one of the first to greet him.
Bishop Ro, Vicar Apostolic of Seoul, and Fr. Brian Geraghty, met Mgr. Quinlan at Pusan and flew on with him to Seoul.
'The joy I feel
At the Seoul airport too were Mgr. Mousset, retired Vicar Apostolic of Taegu, representatives of the Korean Foreign Minister and the American Ambassador, Mr. A. S. Halford, British Charge d'Affaires, the deputy mayor of Seoul, Dr. Chang, former Korean Prime Minister, and representatives of the American Army chaplains,
A procession of cars, jeeps and decorated lorries escorted Mgr. Quinlan to the cathedral, where he officiated at Solemn Benediction and the singing of the Te Deum.
"I cannot express in words the joy
feel as I stand here among you after four years," Mgr. Quinlan told the crowded congregation, speaking in Korean.
"I know this welcome is given because I am the Holy Father's representative and 1 thank you from my heart."
The last time Mgr. Quinlan was present at a ceremony in Seoul Cathedral was for the episcopal consecration of his Maryknoller friend. Bishop Byrne, whom he buried 17 months later in the frozen ground of a North Korean prison camp and whom he now succeeds as the Holy Father's representative among Korea's suffering people.