From our Coincidence Not Irony desk

Sunday’s New York Times featured this collision of viewpoints on last April’s South Korean ferry tragedy that took hundreds of young lives.

First, this full-page ad on Page 5 (New England Edition).

Then, this Page 10 piece about Pope Francis’ visit to South Korea which “thrilled” the country’s Catholics but “unsettled” South Korean Protestants.

Make ’em nuts graf:

Although tensions between South Korea’s Catholics and Protestants are not new, the pope’s visit has brought into focus the often ugly rivalry between churches vying for hearts and souls in South Korea. It also comes as the country is still reeling from accusations by prosecutors that the pastor of a relatively small Christian church siphoned money from the company whose ferry sank in April, killing more than 200 teenagers.

Coincidentally, that connection also popped up in the Sunday column of Boston Globe Cathoholic Czar John L. Allen Jr.

On four occasions, Francis met family members of the victims of an April ferry disaster off the South Korean coast that left more than 300 dead, mostly high school students on a field trip. The disaster has sparked national outrage and angry demands for an independent criminal probe.

Francis wore a pin of a yellow ribbon on his papal cassock symbolizing solidarity, and even baptized the father of a victim, a Korean man named Lee Ho-Jin – who promptly took the baptismal name “Francis” in the pope’s honor.

That’s nice – but it’s not exactly a call for justice.

Expect more to come on this particular vortex.