A South Korean Roman Catholic cardinal journeyed Wednesday to North Korea in a historic first trip during the height of the revived hostility between the adjacent countries.

The Unification Ministry spokesperson, Park Soo-jin of South Korea, said that Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung traveled to the shared North-South industrial park at Kaesong, North Korea for a whole-day affair to visit the complex and interact with the South Koreans who are working there.

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The Catholic officials from South Korea refuted the speculations made by the press saying that the goal of the cardinal's trip was to prepare for Pope Francis' possible visit to North Korea after his trip to South Korea this August.

The pope will be in SoKor from August 14 to 18 to join in a Catholic youth festival, lead over a beatification ceremony aimed for 124 Korean martyrs, and to convey a peace message to the war-stricken countries. This will be the first time that a pope will visit the Korean peninsula in 25 years.

Yeom is the third South Korean who was appointed as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. The Unification Ministry said that the cardinal's Kaesong trip signifies the first time that a South Korean cardinal will visit North Korea.

The constitution of North Korea promises freedom of religion for all its citizens, yet only the sanctioned services by the government are tolerated in the country.

Critics of the communist regime have reported that handing out Bibles and summoning a group to conduct secret prayer meetings can result to expulsion to a labor camp or even total execution.

The dispute between the countries in the Korean Peninsula have increased recently after Pyongyang carried out several rocket and missile launches and continued to send harsh messages to South Korea and the US up to this day.