Gallagher, 69, made the remarks during a visit to South Korea to attend a symposium as a part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of Vatican-Korea diplomatic ties on Nov. 21, Vatican News reported.

The academic symposium called: “Korea-Vatican Relations History Discovery Project” was held at the Franciscan Education Center in the capital Seoul.

Following the symposium, Gallagher presided over a special Mass at the Seosomun Shrine History Museum.

During his symposium address, he recalled how the anniversary coincides with the conclusion of an archival research and preservation project supported by the Korean government and bishops. The project concerns documents preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Archive, the Apostolic Library, and the Pontifical Representation in Seoul.

The research project has also unearthed documents relating to the help given by then-Archbishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, to the Korean delegation to the United Nations in 1948 for the recognition of Korea as a legitimate state by the UN.

The Holy See established the Vicariate Apostolic of Chosun in 1831 that covered the Korean Peninsula where Catholicism started spreading in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Church records say.