Caritas official says agency helps engage isolated North Korea

Published: 2005-03-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- By meeting the needs of some of North Korea's most vulnerable people, Caritas Internationalis is helping the politically isolated country engage with the rest of the world, said the confederation's secretary-general, Duncan MacLaren. Caritas' work in the communist country is important "not just because of the size of the program and the needs of its people, but because it's such an isolated place from the world community," he told Catholic News Service March 16. "If Caritas can contribute to opening up the spaces for dialogue and therefore opening up the spaces for peace-building, then that's part of our job as well," he said. The head of the Vatican-based confederation of Catholic aid agencies had just returned from a Feb. 26-March 8 visit to various Caritas projects in North Korea's Hamgyong province.

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